Only One
by blacktpyro
Summary: Bella Swan goes to New York to attend a private academy, where she meets the popular but introverted Edward Cullen. They become close, to the shock of many of the academy students. However, both of them have histories that make their relationship difficul
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

disclaimer: i dont own twilight. i luff it but i dont own it :3

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Bella opened one eye, and then the other. Shit. What time was it? She shifted her eyes lazily to the open window. It was dark outside. Probably still the middle of the night. Bella's eyes shifted lazily to the clock. 4:37 am. She stared blankly at the hands of the clock for a minute before jumping out of bed.

"SHIT! I'M LATE!" she yelped, forgetting that Charlie was snoring peacefully in the other room. Today was the first day of school and she was already going to be late? What inhumane sort of luck was she born with?! She was supposed to be at her first class at 7: 30, and on the way, she would have to swing by a Barnes and Nobles to get a copy of the book she needed for English class. The drive to school was THREE HOURS. Obviously, since it was in another _state_.

This left her two options: either be tardy and have the English book she needed, or just screw the book for the first day and get to school on time. Either way, she'd be in trouble…. OR she could always just hurry up and try getting the book and arriving to school on time. Was it possible? Well, Bella was a pretty quick runner and she didn't need to eat breakfast. Or lunch… which she hadn't packed. Damn it, she could just starve for the day.

So… get dressed, shower, brush teeth, drive to Barnes and Nobles, get to school, hurry to find dorm room, throw suitcase onto bed, and charge to class. Good plan, good plan.

Bella quickly got dressed, throwing on a pair of faded, black jeans and a plain, gray t-shirt. She stuffed her notebooks into her backpack, heaved her duffel bag over her shoulder, and stuffed her feet into her old black Converse high-tops. Upon bursting through the door, she realized that the weather was definitely way too cold for late August. She ran back into the house and threw on a sweater.

At Barnes and Nobles, she immediately charged toward the Classic Lit. section of the store and after finding the right book, skipped quickly over to Starbucks for a cappuccino. Fortunately, the line was short and she dove clumsily back to her car, keeping a hawk-eye on the time. _Shit. I'm running out of gas too_. What a screwy day.

Finally, finally, she got to Hallmark Preparatory Academy. There was utterly nobody on the road at 5 am in the morning, so she had managed to drive to New York in only two hours. The gates were just closing as she drove through in her beat-up Toyota. The guy closing the gates looked her over sharply. _What the hell ever, jackass. I made it on time._

Looking at her pass, her dorm, 427, was on the FOURTH FLOOR. WHAT. THE. HELL! Ack. Bella moaned and flew up the stairs, meanwhile knocking into a guy and spilling her precious last drops of coffee onto his shirt.

"SHIT! Sorry!" Bella exclaimed, as she helped the guy up. He raised his eyebrows as she gave him a hug to make up for it, and then continued running without another word.

Finally! At the dorm. Her cell phone said 7: 20 am. Oh, crap. Bella threw her duffel bag onto the bed and then charged out the door. She could unpack later. As she flew down the stairs, skipping every two steps, she passed the guy she had spilled coffee on. She vaguely noticed him but decided not to stop and apologize again, and attempted to fly onwards. Unfortunately, he tugged her hood, nearly choking her.

"Hey! What are you doing? I'm LATE!" Bella said. His eyes narrowed.

"You forgot your uniform," he commented impassively. Did the guy BLINK?

She was already on the first floor. Did she honestly have to run all the way back to her dorm? She looked at her faded jeans, ripped at the bottom, and riding low on her waist. Her t-shirt was pretty wrinkled since she always forgot to iron her clothes, and the sweater she was wearing an old guy sweater that she had to buy in size XXXXS since apparently, guys were all the incredible hulk.

Then, she looked at her hair, which had cooperated surprisingly well this morning, considering she had spent five seconds combing it. Her scarf was sliding off, and it was torn at the edges. Admittedly, she looked like shit but there was NO TIME! And the damn guy woudn't let go of her.

Was this revenge for spilling a drop of coffee on him? But he had already CHANGED! And it had been only ONE minute! Did he just strip right there on the stairs or something?

"Err… well, I'm sure the teachers will let it slide the first day and I'm really sorry about that coffee-spilling incident. But I'm in a rush…" Bella said, as she pointed down the stairs to all the other kids hurrying to their classrooms.

He was tall, sturdy, good-looking. He had soft features, a flat but hard stomach, cute biceps that weren't bulging too prominently, and tousled, bronze hair. Admittedly, he was _hot. _However, Bella honestly didn't care right now. She noticed that the hypocrite wasn't wearing the uniform either! Did she spill the coffee on his uniform? Nah, he had been wearing a t-shirt, Bella remembered!

"What is your first class?" He asked serenely, completely unperturbed. Bella inwardly groaned. Honestly. What the hell. But just to appease him, Bella pulled the wrinkled schedule out of her pocket.

"Calculus with Mrs. Penny. Room 143. Where the heck is that?" Bella mumbled to herself, forgetting that the guy was there. Great, now she could spend another twenty minutes getting lost in this huge-ass academy.

The academy was for rich people, the sons and daughters of celebrities, huge corporate businessman, successful lawyers, foreign-exchange royals, etc. and etc. Bella was getting dizzy just looking around at the people, with all their Louis Vuitton and Prada and DKNY and whatever. Obviously, Bella did not belong here with her 20-buck jeans from Pac-Sun, 10-dollar T-shirt from Target, and 30-buck shoes from Journeys. She had gotten into this academy on scholarship, so clearly, she was not of the rich and famous type.

Bella eyed the guy holding onto her sweater. This guy didn't look all that pretentious. At least he wasn't completely decorated in high-class designer brands, like everyone else in the school. He was wearing a polo with a blazer, a tie, and jeans. Seemed casual enough, but Bella had no time to be observing this weird-ass guy right now.

"I can show you where Room 143 is. It's also my class," the guy said evenly. Bella eyed him suspiciously. What was with this kid? Clearly, he was delusional. She had spilled coffee on him and now he was offering to show her to class? Maybe he would bring her to some abandoned classroom three miles away from room 143 and beat her up. Or he could lock her into a closet and steal her identity. Like anyone would want to steal _her _identity. Especially a hot guy like this one. Either way, she did not trust this kid.

"No thanks. I can manage on my own. But thanks anyway," Bella said as she attempted to let go of his tight grasp on her sweater. Geezus christ. He was strong too. Good-looking and strong. What a jackass. Just _trying _to make her heart jump everywhere. Right when it was already jumping everywhere in panic about being tardy.

"Come on," the guy said and began walking, as if he did this everyday. Kidnapping poor, clueless strangers. Bella, seeing that she pretty much had no choice, trailed listlessly after him, applauding herself for an excellent start on the first day of school. NOT.

Two minutes later, they were in front of the classroom. Oh, phew. Not late. Just a minute away from the bell ringing.

"EDWARD!" a girl's voice called out. A gorgeous girl skipped daintily over. This girl must be Edward's girlfriend. She had golden, honey-colored hair that curled at her shoulders. Her eyelashes were long and thick. Her skin was pale and smooth, and all her accessories were probably the cost of Bella's house.

Upon seeing Edward holding the hood of Bella's sweater, the girl glared.

"Edward… who's the peasant? Don't tell me you're starting a charity project now. You're doing more than enough to get into Harvard and you never have enough time to be with me," the girl pouted. Edward winced, his face deadpan. Ohh. Smart, hardworking, hot, and strong. Was it possible for people to be this perfect?

"Actually, Hailey--"

"Err… thanks for showing me the classroom…" Bella cut Edward off, and pushed the door open. The door shut behind her with a low thud. All eyes turned to her. Jesus christ, everyone in this school was not only rich, but gorgeous. Bella rolled her eyes to the ceiling and then found a seat in the back of the classroom to sit at. All eyes followed her warily.

When Bella sat down, Edward came into the room with Hailey. She was clinging onto his shirt and he looked a bit pissed. Bella twirled her pencil lazily and fell asleep… eh.

She was poked awake by a cute, pixie-like, petite girl with short, black hair and a cheerful face. She was smiling and her eyes danced with merriment.

"Haha, class is over. What's your name?" the girl asked. Bella blinked for a few seconds before processing what the girl had just said.

"… You can call me Bella," Bella said tiredly and stretched.

"Hehe. My name is Alice Cullen. And this is my boyfriend, Jasper!" Alice said, pulling over a tall, lean guy. He gave Bella a slight smile. Alice laughed, a tinkling, melodic laugh, and snatched Bella's schedule with her free hand, still holding onto Jasper's arm.

"Oh! You only have Calculus with me," Alice said despairingly. Bella blinked, not sure how to respond. She never knew it was this easy to make a new friend. Or, really it wasn't easy for BELLA. It seemed pretty easy to ALICE, who seemed like a playful, little kitten.

"HEY! But you have EVERY class with Edward! Haha. Well, it's okay. You can always sit with us at lunch!" Alice said warmly. Bella blinked some more.

"Uh… how do you know Edward?" Bella asked, blinking. Wasn't that the psychopath from this morning?

"Edward Cullen. He's my brother. He's in this class also," Alice said simply.

"Oh," Bella said. They were siblings? But Alice and Edward were completely different. Well, to be specific, Alice was sane whereas Bella wasn't sure about the mental conditions of Edward…

"Speaking of which, have you already met him? Because he usually sleeps in class, and today, he was all awake, staring at you. Completely pissed the hell out of half the girls in the class," Alice said, still smiling.

"Err… he showed me to the classroom because I didn't know where it was," Bella said. Why the hell was the psychopath staring at her during class? Crreeeppy.

"Let me tell you about Edward Cullen. He doesn't give a shit. About anything. He skips school and sleeps in class. He doesn't listen to anybody. Half the time, I don't even know what the hell he's doing. He got into an argument with Dad and ran away from home. He's cold and calm and doesn't take anything seriously. He just doesn't care. So the fact that he actually walked you to your classroom and kept looking at you during class definitely means something," Alice lectured like a college professor.

"Erm… I don't know… I spilled coffee on him?" Bella blinked. She looked at the time. When was her next class? There was a free, ten-minute period between every class. The academy was obviously pretty liberal if they thought the students needed ten minutes between every class to, quote the pamphlet, "freshen up." A large, sturdy guy came in, holding hands with a beautiful, blonde girl.

"EMMETT! ROSALIE!" Alice said, getting up to give the guy and girl a hug.

"Who's the homeless kid you're harboring?" the girl's eyes narrowed.

"This is Bella! Bella, meet Emmett and Rosalie. Emmett is my brother and Rosalie is his girlfriend," Alice said, grinning.

Just then, the bell rang. Bella stared at her schedule. Oh great… next class was three floors up and on the other side of the Academy. Heaving up her black Jansport backpack, Bella shot out of the classroom to get to class on time. She waved to Alice, who grinned back.

Bella got into the classroom just as the bell rang. As usual, she headed to the back of the classroom. She twirled her pencil and began to doodle all over her shoes with Sharpie.

Five minutes later, the door opened and a certain psychopath, ahem EDWARD, appeared at the doorway. All eyes looked up. Every girl in the room seemed to melt into their seats. Bella could even hear wistful sighs. Bella went back to doodling on her shoes. She didn't really care about that psycho, and his girlfriend scared her. Bella wondered how badly injured she could get from coming into contact with Hailey's long, sharp, painted nails.

"Late again, I see, Mr. Cullen. Take a seat," Mr. Baker said dully and pointed to a seat right next to Bella. "Mr. Cullen" swept easily to the back of the room and all eyes followed him… except for Bella's. She was obliviously drawing on her shoes.

She didn't look up until he sat down and chuckled.

"What?" Bella asked. She yawned.

"Are you tired? Need some sleep?" Edward chuckled. Somehow, whenever he laughed, it seemed like a smirk. Whatever. Why was her overwhelming fatigue even so amusing?

"Sure," Bella said simply, shrugging. This guy was wack. For some reason, Edward glared a little at the ground and turned around.

"He's disturbed that you are completely unbothered by his sexual harassment," the guy next to Bella poked her in the arm.

"Oh," Bella said, "What the hell?" Jacob cracked up and Edward glared some more.

"My name is Jacob, but you can call me Jakie," the guy said flirtatiously.

"Sure, but you hit on me, I hit you," Bella said curtly. The corners of Edward's mouth curled up in a cynical smile.

After five minutes, Bella fell asleep. She hadn't slept at all last night because of all the Coke she had drank to calm her down after realizing she had forgotten to get her English book. Instead, she had been chatting online with her California friends to help her forget about her problems.

This time, she was awoken by some loud giggling. She cracked an eye open and saw Hailey with some other girls.

"Hey. Can I help?" Bella asked, not moving.

"Yeah… uh, honey, what's your name?" Hailey asked sweetly. Bella didn't answer and Hailey's eyes narrowed menacingly.

"Well, look, slut, I just wanted to warn you. Don't get too close to Edward Cullen, or you'll get it," Hailey hissed. Bella shrugged.

"Okay. Sure. Are you his girlfriend or something?" Bella asked impassively. She was really not awake enough to be dealing with any bitches right now.

"Well, I am pretty much his girlfriend. He's definitely going to ask me to the Autumn Homecoming Dance, so you better back off and know your place. It's as if you think someone like EDWARD CULLEN, who is the hottest guy at this academy and also my destined soul mate, would even twitch an eyebrow at a loser like you," she said.

"Whatever. It's not like I'm interested," Bella said, shrugging. What the hell? Did she honestly have to deal with jealous prima donnas the first day of school? All she wanted to do was SLEEEP.

"Ugh. Of course you are interested. EVERY girl and even some GUYS at this Academy are interested in Edward. Don't LIE to me. It's so pathetic."

"Uh… sure. Well, if everyone is interested in him, then why are you just hissing at me and not every girl and guy at this school?" Bella asked, blinking.

"Shut up, bitch. It's because you're annoying and ugly and your fashion sense is shittier than a rat's. So just crawl into a hole and DIE there," Hailey said. Bella shrugged. She was expecting bitches to have aversions to her status at the bottom of the social ladder. It wasn't something she was concerned about. All she wanted to do was survive here for the next two years and then go happily off to Princeton, where she would major in Literature and then get a good-paying job to pay the bills.

"Okay… well, are you done? Because I need to get a Coke before my next class," Bella said, pointing at the door. Hailey snorted just as Edward stepped into the room. Apparently, he'd gone out for an errand for the teacher, since he was carrying an enormous stack of papers, which he dumped onto the teacher's desk inadvertently.

Hailey glared at Bella and then smiled sweetly to Edward. It was so fake, Bella smirked. _People at this school are lunatics._ Bella swept past Edward and Hailey, and went out to the vending machine to get a Coke.

At the vending machine, Bella stuffed her hand into her pocket and removed fifty cents. Shit. She needed another dollar to get a Coke. How could she have come to school with no money? All her cash was at her dorm. Bella moaned. AGH, what a horrible day.

"Hey," a voice called from behind her. Bella turned around and saw Edward's face… about a hair's width away from her face. She would have punched him, but she was so damn tired, she didn't even have the effort to be bothered by his disturbing closeness. Instead, she just sighed.

"No. I do not need help. I was just going to get a Coke, but I am a miserable charity project," Bella said, quoting Hailey. _I should be a charity project. Seriously, my life is such a demented hell hole… AND I JUST REALIZED I LEFT MY GYM SHORTS IN MY DORM! AND I HAVE TRACK AUDITIONS TODAY!_

"SHIT!" Bella exclaimed. Edward raised his eyebrows as he paid for two Cokes in the vending machine. Bella didn't even notice. She just picked up her backpack and hurried off to her next class ten minutes early so she could be prepared for a car crash on her way. She didn't even hear Edward calling her name.

The rest of the morning was a numb blur. Bella didn't even notice that Edward hadn't shown up to any of his classes. In Physics, Bella was assigned Jacob's partner. He just sat there and whistled while Bella worked her ass off, meanwhile making pissed glances in Jacob's direction. Jacob grinned toothily and sometimes pretended he was doing something by fooling around with a beaker. What an ass.

At Lunch, Alice called her over. Bella hadn't brought a lunch and school lunches cost too much, so Bella was left to starve. Edward came over halfway through lunch, carrying a Coke bottle. He set it in front of Bella and smirked. The other four looked at him.

"I got you a Coke, but you ran away," he said to Bella. Bella stared at him.

"Uh. Thanks," Bella said, immediately opening the bottle and guzzling half of it down. It tasted GOOD, and Bella didn't even care that the psycho may have snuck drugs into it or something. She just needed the Coke.

"I'll pay you back tomorrow," Bella said, to which Edward politely refused.

"Hey, Edward, my man! You're at school?" Emmett spoke up. Edward smiled cynically, looking at Bella, who was still guzzling down the Coke.

"Wouldn't you be skipping by now?" Alice said, as Edward chuckled and sat on Bella's lap. She nearly choked on her Coke.

"But I had an important mission," Edward said, pointing to the empty Coke bottle.

"Why… are you on my lap?" Bella hissed.

"Because I have nowhere to sit and your lap is cozy," Edward said innocently, without smirking this time. Bella raised her eyebrow. So did the other four. Then, Bella just leaned back and shrugged.

"Bella, aren't you going to push Edward off of you?" Emmett asked, goggly-eyed.

"I don't care. Besides, it's his problem to taint his rich ass by sitting on my cheap jeans." Edward chuckled, leaning back into her shoulder. In two seconds, he had fallen asleep like a little puppy. Bella grimaced. _Hell, he smells good… _For the rest of the lunch period, Bella pretended to be part of the conversation and occasionally _subtly _inhaling the scent of Edward.

The rest of lunch, Bella pretended to ignore Edward's existence and once the bell rang, Bella was almost late to class again because she had to shove Edward awake. Edward wasn't in class for the rest of the day.

After school, it was raining mercilessly. Bella moaned. _I don't have an umbrella… _And today was track auditions… It was pouring way too hard; Bella would have to skip this track audition and plead to be rescheduled. The Academy was made up of four buildings. The Main Building was the biggest building where all the main classes were. The Gymnasium was about a mile away from the Main Building. The Electives Building was a mile away from the Main Building in the opposite direction, making a triangle. Then, the Dormitories Building was situated in the middle of the triangle.

If Bella wanted to make it to the track auditions, she would have to walk all the way to the Dorm Building, get her gym shorts and pick up her car, and then drive to the Gymnasium. Meanwhile, she would have to grab some food. She was fucking starving. Most of the kids were taking a simple taxi, but Bella had no cash on her. Besides, it wasn't like she had had a choice with Edward tugging on her sweater and dragging her over here.

She was already soaked and shivering when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and realized that once again, Edward had managed to stalk her. He held an umbrella over her head, and he was grimacing.

"Gee, what are you doing, standing out here in the rain?" he asked. Was that concern Bella heard in his voice? Crazy psychopath was now going to play the role of mother.

"I have track auditions in an hour, but I'm considering skipping," she mumbled. Why was she even telling the truth? She could have just been like, HEY, BRITNEY SPEARS, and made a run for it. Pshaw, like Edward was that dense.

Edward nodded, and then edged closer to Bella so that they were sharing the umbrella. Bella didn't say anything as he walked with her toward the Dormitory Building. After a while, she realized that most of the umbrella was covering her, and Edward was getting pretty wet. He showed no sign of being cold. He just smirked when Bella glowered up at him. She pulled him towards her so that he was under the umbrella too. Now he was so close and his arm kept brushing against her shoulder… Bella bit her tongue. What the hell was she thinking? Crazy hormones.

"Uh… so where we going?" Edward was shivering. Bella was going to say "anywhere," but then Edward passed out right on top of her. Awkkkward. Damn, , the guy was heavy. Bella could smell the clean soap smell of Edward and the closeness was just a little awkward, but for some reason, it felt almost comfortable. He felt gentle and yet protective. Even though he was _unconscious_. Spazzing and out of breath, Bella pushed Edward off.

_Shit. And I have to go to the first day of my new job at New York in an hour. Holy crap. _

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phewie. long chapter. R&R, kids :)


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMERR: NO OWN TWILIGHT! heehee its all stephanie meyer's :DD

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Chapter 2

Bella hobbled over to the door, with Edward on her back. Struggling profusely to support the weight of Edward, she pulled a key out of her pocket and attempted to open the door. Unfortunately, she was piggy-backing Edward, so she needed at least one hand to support him, or else he'd slide off. Therefore, she had to unlock the door with one hand, which, although it didn't sound so horrible, was indeed highly difficult.

She was getting frustrated, trying to stick the key into its lock when the door opened and a curious-looking Alice Cullen stared outside.

"Alice?" Bella gawked for a full thirty seconds. Alice giggled.

"Oh, Bella, you must be my roommate. I was wondering where my roommate was. She wasn't here this morning and she hasn't been here for the past hour after school. But what luck! It's you!" Alice exclaimed, eyes shining. She seemed to be blind to the unconscious deadweight that was currently crushing Bella.

"Er. Yes. Well, that is really amazing and I am very psyched, you have noo idea. But it's sort of hard to jump up and down and give out hugs while there is a dead man crushing me," Bella said. Alice stared for a moment, not seeming to register what Bella had just said.

"Oh! Uh… sorry. Why is there a dead-- BELLA, IS THAT EDWARD?" Alice shrieked. Somehow, even when she shrieked, her voice sounded like music. Totally unfair. Bella never shrieked. Usually, she just groaned. And it was never anything high-pitched so it always turned out somewhat like a MOO.

Regardless, Bella shuffled slowly to her bed and dropped Edward onto it, not even delicately. When he woke up and had a sore ass, it was his fault. Bella stretched. After Edward had passed out on her, Bella had had no cash on her to get a taxi. Furthermore, none of the kids at Hallmark Private Academy knew her or liked her enough to give her a ride. They were all busy with their rich, wonderful, celebrity lives. Getting their eyebrows waxed, getting their hair dyed, going out for a low-carb, low-fat after-school snack at some glamorous place, meeting up with old buddies like Paris Hilton. What a drag.

She had searched desperately on Edward for some money, but eventually, she decided it was too awkward. All the kids around looked funnily at her, probably wondering why she was feeling him up. As if.

She thought about asking someone for help but they were all ignoring her or giving her hostile looks, especially girls. Like, what the fuck are you doing with Edward, you ho? Fortunately, Hailey had probably already left to get her day's worth of liposuction and plastic, surgical nose repair. She also could have called 911 or something. Edward Cullen passed out by the side of the street seemed like a pretty huge emergency, although none of the other people at this Academy seemed concerned. However, her cell phone was dead out of battery, and she personally didn't like the fuss of ambulances.

A kid biked around the corner and Bella begged to borrow his bike. He agreed enthusiastically: "Hells, yes. Since you go to Hallmark Private Academy and it's for the Edward Cullen, I'll do anything for you. Plus, even though you dress like a dyke, you look like a total babe." Right, what an ass. Unfortunately, he was twelve so Bella couldn't really do anything. She just stared at him condescendingly for a few moments. Then, she had to manage to get herself and Edward onto the bike, and then start biking. The kid hadn't seemed like he needed the bike returned. He had just walked away merrily, whistling the theme song for Grey's Anatomy. What a cheesy dude. Was everyone in the neighborhood this insane? Well, at least Bella now got a free new bike.

Bella biked away with Edward leaning on her back, completely conked out. She biked to the Dorm Building, and had to piggy-back Edward ALL the way up the FOUR flight of stairs. Honestly. This guy owed her.

Bella was muttering under her breath about the things she did for the goodness of humanity, when she noticed Alice still staring.

"Yes, Alice?"

"Can I just ask what happened?" Alice squeaked.

"Yes, you may. Edward decided to pass out and now we are here," Bella said darkly, and began to unpack. What shitty luck. Now, she was so behind on homework and she had to get to her FIRST DAY of her new job.

She was working at a bakery/flower shop/coffee shop combination down the street. It wasn't all that mainstream, but she loved the fudge and cappuccinos there. When she had gone in for a job interview, she had been offered free fudge and coffee. The owners were incredibly nice and her colleague, Eric something, was sorta sleazy but still cool.

"That doesn't really answer my question, but when it comes to Edward, I should know by now not to ask," Alice said, laughing melodically. MELODICALLY. Honestly, Alice, why are you at this private academy? Go join Broadway. You're musical even when you're breathing.

"Uh… he passed out, like, right in front of the Academy. And nobody would fucking help me! I thought Edward was supposed to be the hottest guy at the Academy or bullshit. Why wouldn't anyone help save a life??" Bella complained. Her shoulders were sore as hell. Alice laughed at the pained look on Bella's face.

"Oh, well, you see, most girls at the Academy are just fixated with Edward because he's sexy, and apparently because he's mysterious and unique. This element of mystery contributes to his appeal. Nobody knows what the hell's going on with him. He either skips class, or sleeps in the back. Still, he's the top student at the Academy and teachers can't really say anything about that. The closest anyone ever got to confronting him was Victoria, and nobody really knows how that went down. He doesn't talk much and honestly, people find him hard to approach. Very hard to approach. Along with their endless lust for him, they're pretty intimidated. Then, this random new student comes in at the middle of high school and suddenly, she's his new best friend. People are just confused right now, but soon, they'll be pissed. Either way, today when he passed out, it just deepened their confusion and I think they were probably more concerned about figuring out what the hell was going on between you and Edward, rather than trying to help you out. I'm not going to say they aren't intimidated by you too. They've never seen a person like you at the Academy before."

Alice recited this like she was reading out of a Science textbook. She said everything casually, too, as if this was just a lecture on Chemistry. Bella winced, processing this new information. Edward wasn't exactly mysterious, more… weird. Now, he just sounded messed-up. Seriously, it would be regrettable for someone so beautiful to go live in a hole, but maybe that would be the healthiest thing for him. Hello? He doesn't talk to people? What a pitiful and lonely existence.

Alice was staring, obviously expecting a response.

"Ahh… well. That's…. lovely. Uh…" Bella stuttered. How was she supposed to respond to this anyway? She was just as confused as the rest of the student body.

Fortunately, she didn't need to elaborate on her random phrases, because suddenly, Edward burst into a fit of coughing. He was sweating in copious amounts. Bella wondered why he hadn't drowned in his own sweat yet. Immediately, she bounded over and placed a hand over his forehead. DAMN! It practically burned her hand. She actually checked for singe marks.

"Holy shit, man. You are HOT. And by HOT, I mean burning with fever. Well, you are admittedly gorgeous too, but unfortunately, that doesn't count for much if you're just going to die in an hour. STOP WITH THE SEIZURES. Dude," Bella said. Alice giggled. Even Edward, who Bella had thought was unconscious, smiled… and then burst into another coughing fit.

Frantically, Bella pulled her hair into a ponytail and then went over to the sink. She looked in her suitcase for a towel or anything, but unfortunately, she couldn't find anything. She had hastily threw her entire room into her suitcase the night before departing for school. Of course, nothing had a rightful place.

Therefore, she just snatched a random T-shirt and shoved it under the sink. She turned on the cold water and then filled a bowl with cold water and then walked over to her bed. Great, where was she going to sleep tonight? There was a guy infected with bubonic plague in her bed. Oh, well. The floor always worked.

She set the bowl down and put her wet t-shirt over Edward's head. Unfortunately, she had not yet developed any caring, maternal instincts quite yet. Therefore, she had sloppily slapped it over his head. Then, realizing she hadn't done a really good job, she adjusted it. His eyebrow twitched.

"Sorry," she muttered. Then, feeling like she had to make up for her horrible maternal instincts, or lack thereof, she kissed him on the cheek. He smiled again, and Alice giggled from the sidelines.

"Hey, want to give a helping hand? You could always read him a bedtime story while I go fix him some soup or something. At least I can cook, I hope," Bella said. Alice smiled and skipped gracefully over.

These dormitories were fucking huge. Alice took at least two minutes to get over to Bella and Edward.

Unfortunately, at that time, Jasper entered the room. Alice immediately skipped two minutes over to the door to give him an embrace and a quick kiss. Or not a quick one.

"Bella… and uh, Bella's invalid. That Edward? Well, may I borrow Alice? We're going to see a movie," Jasper said, smiling slightly. Bella blinked.

"Sure, go ahead. Sounds sweet," Bella said. All she could think of when Alice and Jasper left was about how cute they were together. Huh… at least now Bella knew she had a feminist side. Was this even called a feminist side? Weren't feminists people who believed women could be awesome like men?

Groaning about her stupidity, Bella sidled into the kitchen, keeping a wary eye on Edward to make sure he wouldn't cough a lung out.

Then, in the kitchen, Bella quickly threw something together. She hummed while she worked. Well, it wasn't exactly working… It was more looking in the fridge for stuff she could stuff into a blender. She didn't even notice when Edward stumbled in, panting like a mad dog. Not until he came over and leaned his against her shoulder, breathing heavily. Geez, and he was breathing fine this morning. How did he suddenly come down with pneumonia?

"Hey, dude. Don't get too close or you're going to give me your disease," Bella said. Still lacking in maternal instinct, she had forgotten to demand him to return to bed and rest. Edward chuckled, Bella could feel it. God, even when he was dying, he smelled good.

"I AM DONE!" Bella finally said victoriously. He smiled and gave her a little hug. She held out a bowl to him.

"Whoa… a vanilla sundae," Edward said. Bella frowned. That wasn't exactly the reaction she was going for. She personally found that this vanilla sundae turned out gorgeous. Maybe he was allergic to vanilla ice cream? Like that was even possible. Ice cream was the meaning of life.

"Yes, a vanilla sundae," Bella said, waiting to hear him say that he couldn't eat it because he was lactose intolerant or something. Instead, he just took the bowl and sat at a table. Bella stood there, blinking. Edward was still in his half-wet clothes. He motioned for her to sit with him. Bella went over. Edward handed Bella a spoon.

"Share," he said. Was he incapable of saying a full sentence?

"Are you incapable of saying a full sentence?" Bella asked aloud.

"Heh… it hurts to talk right now," Edward said, getting a huge spoonful of ice cream and putting it in his mouth.

"Right," Bella said.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm not a big talker. This ice cream is good. Usually, people make chicken soup or something when someone's sick. But I think I like ice cream better," Edward said. Bella smiled.

"Haha. Well, I make ice cream because to me, chicken soup can just kiss vanilla ice cream's ass. I don't think I ever grew out of my ice cream fetish," Bella said, stuffing herself with ice cream. Edward smiled.

"Come on, eat it. Or else you're going to make me feel like a fatass. And I don't want to be a mother, but you might need to go back to bed when you're done. You look hellishly pale. Oh yeah, and you also need to tell me why you were fine this morning and suddenly passed out after school. THE TRUTH. You can do that when you're in bed. Talking about your life story might help you fall asleep. Otherwise, I might have to drug you," Bella rambled. She was apparently very good at rambling. Especially around Edward Cullen. He chuckled again.

"I'm done, but I think I should stall with the drugging," Edward said.

"Well, actually, there will no drugging because you WILL tell me what's going on with you. So you can stall that all you want, but it's inevitable, kiddo," Bella said, picking up the bowl to wash it in the sink.

"Oh yeah, and you will have to keep it within half an hour long because I have a job to get to. I love you but I'm not skipping my job for you. I'm sure you can sleep on your own. And I'll keep a dictionary or something by you so that if someone tries to come in and rape you, you can throw it at them," Bella said. Edward laughed again.

"That will sure decapitate them. But FIRST, you have to tell me what's going on with you!" Bella said. Edward leaned back in his chair and put his face in his hands.

"When you get back," he said. Bella rolled her eyes.

"Fine, but definitely when I get back," Bella said.

--

OOOH SUSPENSEE bwahaha


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMERR: i dont own twilight heehee.

CHAPTER 3

_Bella screeched to a stop, nearly falling off her bike. She had almost fallen asleep while biking over, and had almost passed her destination. __Prince_. Yes, that was what the coffee shop/ bakery/ ice cream shop was called.

The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Prince, were these cheesy, warm, amiable people. How such lovely people came to own a shop in the middle of _New York_, where people smoked and drove like madmen and spit at innocent dogs and cussed at tourists, was a mystery to Bella. Either way, _Prince _had just opened a few months ago and lucky for Bella, she had been at New York, applying to the Academy, and stumbled upon the shop, where they needed new employees.

Mr. and Mrs. Prince were these grandparent-y types of people who had large stomachs and actually belonged in a nice, suburban area where they could sit at home and cook dinner for their grandchildren and pet their dogs and tend to a garden rather than at New York, where they were getting migraines running a shop.

Well, they weren't exactly getting migraines. They were always smiling and gushing and running around, baking cookies and scrubbing countertops or what-not. Unfortunately, _Prince _wasn't all that far from a _Starbucks_, which meant it hadn't achieved quite so many customers. The location of the shop wasn't exactly brilliant. Poor Mr. and Mrs. Prince, they deserved customers to flood the shop with how friendly they were and how good their coffee was. Not as if they even minded.

As Bella came into the store, a little bell rang, dinging cheerfully. Oh, how charming. Mr. Prince also had a job as a college professor or something, so only Mrs. Prince was there, making muffins. Only two customers were there, sitting and drinking coffee and gossiping quietly. They were clearly tourists, with their backpacks and geeky I HEART NEW YORK t-shirts, which they probably got for two bucks at Ellis Island. Bella's job was to waitress and to man the counter so she swept past the arguing tourists to get to the counter.

Bella said "hi" to Mrs. Prince, who turned around and smiled benignantly.

"Hi, honey, you're two minutes late," Mrs. Prince said. Bella smiled awkwardly. Hopefully, this nice woman wasn't a Nazi about being punctual, otherwise, Bella would be fired from this job in two seconds. In order to make up for her tardiness, she immediately turned to walk over to the counter.

"HEY! You look familiar…" Bella looked at the guy behind the counter. He had long, shaggy hair that reached his eyes. He was tall and muscular, wearing a plain gray T-shirt and jeans under his pale ivory apron. Well, at least he was another kid from the academy who didn't look like some wickedly wealthy son of a celebrity.

"Bella Swan, right? I'm… Jakie from Advanced English class," the guy said, running his fingers through his hair. It was sort of awkward for him to be wearing a bubbly apron that said _Prince_ with how _large _he was.

"Right… Jakie. You work here too? I thought the guy working with me was Eric something," Bella said. What an intelligent little girl you are, Bella.

"Eric Yorkie? Oh, we switched shifts. But he might drop in sometimes, since he is addicted to Mrs. Prince's vanilla bean fraps," Jake said. Mrs. Prince laughed her happy, grandmotherly laugh.

"Ahha. That's cool," Bella said awkwardly, and then went to stand behind the counter with Jake. Fortunately, she had lugged her Calculus book over here, so she heaved it out of her bag and began to tap her pen against her notebook. Why didn't she feel like doing this? Oh, right, it was CALCULUS.

"Do you need help?" Jake asked, "Calculus is pretty easy."

"Oh! Thanks! Now, I feel like a moron," Bella grumbled, but then laughed. Jake blinked, as if he thought she was insane. Well, she wasn't exactly feeling sane today.

"Right, well, it was completely unintentional for me to sound geeky _or _arrogant. But yeah, Calculus is my best subject. You're probably better than me at English anyway," Jake said, running two fingers through his hair again and tapping his ballpoint pen against the counter and staring at a menu.

"Yeah, well, English is my best subject. It's probably the only reason I got into this pretentious-ass academy to begin with. All for free, too. Boy, was it a score until I realized that all the people at the academy were all gorgeous enough to have stepped out of a billboard or something. Not to mention rich and smart and perfect. It's just the first day, and my self-esteem has already been bashed inside-out," Bella sulked. Jake laughed.

"I'm not going to deny that we're pretty pretentious. But uhh… made any new friends at the academy?" Jake asked.

"Well, other than the Cullen family…" Bella could barely finish, before Jake choked on his own saliva or something.

"Whoa, girl! How do you do it? Making friends with the Cullens on your _first day? _That is _amazing_," Jake said incredulously.

"What? Just because I made some new friends?" Bella was confused.

"Oh, no. The Cullens. Please don't tell me you honestly have never heard of the Cullens. Have you been living in a _hole _your entire life??" Jake articulated and gestured wildly. A mother and five kids came into the shop, with a cheerful _ding. _They looked curiously over at Jacob, as if they were concerned for his health.

"Uh… no? Could you please just get to the point? Because honestly, I don't get it," Bella said, just slightly irritated.

"Well, you know that everyone at the Academy is pretty much there because their parents are celebrities or royalties or FBI agents or whatever. Well, the Cullens not only have some amazingly successful and famous _parents_, they're practically worshipped at the academy because they are famous themselves," Jake explained. Bella nodded.

"So what's so shocking?" Bella asked.

"Well, Dr. Carlisle Cullen? Have you ever heard of him?" Jake asked.

"Oh, yeah. He's that amazing doctor who everyone in America and the world are obsessed with, because not only is he an amazing doctor, he's gorgeous and morally virtuous. He's like Mother Theresa except smart and gorgeous. He's won, like, what? Ten Nobel Prizes?" Bella said.

"Yeah, that's their dad!" Jake said, staring at Bella as if this should have been obvious. Bella scowled.

"I just never made the connection with their last names," Bella muttered, although she knew it was pretty stupid of her not to have realized this earlier.

"Yeah, and you know the movie, _Snowing Teardrops_?? I hope you're aware the _lead _of that movie was Rosalie! She's one of the hottest actresses in _America_! And _the world_!" Jake continued.

"Really. Well, I never saw that movie. I'm not really into romantic chick flicks," Bella said. But _Rosalie Cullen _did sound really familiar. Bella felt instantly retarded for not knowing who "the hottest actress in America" was earlier. Actually, she did remember seeing that movie with a group of guy friends in California. They had wanted to go see it as a joke, although at certain excruciating parts, they were all fidgeting with their penis while Bella sank down in her seat, mortified. Really, the only girlfriend who was supposed to go with her had bailed and she was stuck with a group of horny idiots.

"And besides, Rosalie isn't a Cullen. She's just a Cullen's girlfriend!" Bella said, trying to salvage herself from the humiliation of being ignorant of contemporary culture.

"Well, you know that Rose and Emmett _are _engaged, and they will be married once Emmett graduates, right?" Jacob said. Bella winced.

"Well, that's in two years!" Bella said.

"Actually, Emmett's a senior," Jacob said blandly, obviously exasperated with just how clueless Bella was.

"Emmett's an NFL football player, too. I hope you're aware of that," Jake added.

"I… don't watch sports. I'm not exactly an athletic person. Clearly, if you've ever seen me try to walk without tripping all over my feet," Bella said pathetically.

"Yeah, and Alice is that famous actress. She's mostly in horror and action films. She was famous from a really young age because she started out as an amazing dancer. Alice and Edward have been successful since they were about 10 years old," Jake said. Bella was feeling more and more mortified for not realizing just how amazing and famous her friends were. Now, she felt pitiful for being the only plain Jane in the group. What the hell did they even see in her? Probably just befriended her to get a laugh. They were most likely planning on dumping her tomorrow. Rosalie, at least, was honest in expressing her feelings towards Bella.

"Edward started off as a piano prodigy. Damn, that boy could play. Then, when he was fifteen, he was in that really famous band, _NeonEternity_. He was the youngest one in the band, of course. The rest of them were all about seventeen or eighteen," Jake said. Bella was growing slightly woozy in the head.

_NeonEternity _was an incredibly famous band. They hadn't been planning on going mainstream, but somehow, such a good band couldn't stay small and local forever. Nobody could hate them. They were just too amazing. Bella never really got into them, because somehow, mainstream bands that everyone loved just didn't appeal to her too much. They were up there with _Green Day, Linkin Park, _whatever else. But _NeonEternity _was younger, fresher, hotter, brighter, and just more exciting. Everyone was so addicted to them but they only came out with two albums before breaking up. Everyone was horrified, but according to a certain magazine, "Such a queer, hardcore, emo band that was meant to stay underground could never last long mainstream. Press and publicity would kill it." Two of the band members were gay and one was bisexual. Edward was apparently the only straight one.

"WHAT? BUT HIS NAME WAS EDDIE! And what happened to all the multiple piercings and ripped, black get-up and silver nail polish and red streaks?! The neon yellow Converses and duct-taped fingerless gloves? You're kidding me, right?!" Bella screeched, just remembering the band members. Honestly, Eddie Edward?! Yeah, when pigs fly.

"Yeah, well. Nobody knows what happened. He got warped back to normal, though he's still space-y and mysterious. It's what turns all the girls on," Jake smiled at Bella's clearly incredulous expression.

"If what you just said was a load of BS, I will personally strip you naked and put you up on a flagpole for the world to see," Bella grunted.

"Wow, what a threat. Who knew a short, skinny, innocent-looking girl like you could get so bitchy?" Jake joked.

"I'm not short, you're just abnormally tall. And I'm not being _bitchy_, I'm being highly doubtful. I don't like liars," Bella said.

"Oh, I'm not lying," Jake said, laughing. Honestly, the guy was pretty easily amused, wasn't he?

"Yeah, and I'm also in a horrible mood today. It's not everyday my self-esteem gets crushed so thoroughly and not also everyday you get shocked outta your pants," Bella said.

"I wish I literally shocked you outta your pants. That'd be impressive," Jacob said, smiling. Bella laughed. Not even a modest laugh.

"One minute, you're threatening me and the next, you are laughing like a freak. Are you PMS-ing?" Jake asked. That guy wasn't easily mortified, was he?

"Oh, no. I think it's menopause," Bella said. Jake winced.

"Wow, you're not easily ashamed, are you, old women?" Jake said.

"Why would anyone be ashamed of menopause? It's just growing a little old. So I can't have kids anymore. I'm sure I'll be able to build a bridge and get over it," Bella shrugged. The tourists left the shop.

"Do I get tip for not helping them in any way, shape or form?" Bella asked eagerly.

"Uh, no. This is not a _restaurant_. They paid for everything beforehand. Bella, you idiot. And when you jump and down like that, you really remind people of a puppy," Jake said. Bella stopped jumping.

"Oh well. That means I'm lovable, right?" Bella said. Jake laughed.

"Anyway, the only other person at the academy who is also famous herself is Victoria. She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. She's a famous fashion designer and immorally sexy. It's ridiculously unfair for any human being on the planet to be so hot. Unfortunately, she only has eyes for precious little Edward. And also, practically the entire academy knew that Edward and Victoria were going to get together. After all, she was the only girl who had ever had the guts to talk to him and she was the girl who was closest to him," Jacob said.

"Uh… _was _the only girl who _was _closest to him? What happened? Did they, like, get into a fight?" Bella asked. Obviously, she had a lot to learn about this academy and its people.

"Well, until today, of course. Everyone saw you and Edward, especially at lunch. We all thought the world was ending!" Jake said. Bella winced. She opened her mouth to say something, but then Mrs. Prince came flouncing over.

"Bella! I need help in the back! We need to package all these brownies and ship them!" Mrs. Prince said. Bella shut her Calculus book and walked over to the back door. Before she could swing it open, the door to the shop opened with a cheery ring of the bell.

Guess who walked in? If it wasn't Victoria herself, holding the hand of… _Edward Cullen_. Victoria led him over to a table. He was looking at his feet. He was wearing plain, Adidas sneakers with a piece of duct tape on the bottom, clearly taping the shoe intact. No more eccentric footwear for him. Bella swung open the door and stepped into the back room before Edward could see her. For some reason, her heart was crashing down. She could hear it dying, spiral downwards. Why was she having a spaz attack, anyway? It wasn't like she had had any feelings for _Edward_. He was _psychotic_.

For some reason, she felt embarrassed. Just because Edward had showed her to her classroom and bought her a Coke and passed out on her and been dragged to her dorm room didn't mean _anything_. She was still a lame, poor, plebian, pathetic freak. She could barely stay awake the entire day and she had made him some lame-ass ice cream when he had passed out instead of something sane, like chicken soup. Then, she had expected him to stay in her bed in her dorm, when he could always have just easily walked out.

Anyway, she had nothing on Victoria. That girl was _hot. _Her fiery scarlet hair fell in gorgeous locks on her back. She was thin but not too thin, with curves in all the right places. Furthermore, she was wearing close-fitting clothes that she probably designed herself, showing off her hotness.

Bella was almost too mortified to package the brownies. Fortunately, the hawk-eye of Mrs. Prince was enough motivation to keep her on task. After a while, Bella was just too tempted and had to peer outside. Victoria was talking intensely to Edward. Edward just leaned back in his seat. His expression gave nothing away. It was laidback and indifferent. He was dressed in the way where it was obvious he didn't care how he looked but he still looked good anyway. For some reason, it made Bella's heart skip a beat… or twenty beats.

Sighing, Bella went back to packaging. After ten minutes, she had finished packaging and Mrs. Prince said Bella had to go back to manning the counter, since Jacob had left quickly to run an errand for Mrs. Prince.

Bella would have tried to get out of it but at that point, she didn't understand why she was in such a horrible condition. For Christ's sake, he didn't even mean that much to her. She didn't need to bash her self-esteem even more. Who cared if she was wearing a ratty, black t-shirt that said _FREAK SHOW_. Her mother had bought it for her as a joke. Furthermore, she was wearing some faded jeans from Pac-Sun. They were at least a year old, and torn at the bottom. Clearly, all straight-leg jeans were automatically men's jeans, from the taunts she was getting from the academy for wearing these pants. She hadn't even bothered to tie her apron at the back so it swung in front of her loosely.

She was planning on walking out silently and calmly, but unfortunately, being the clumsy fool that she was, she stumbled and hit a chair, causing most people in the shop to look at her funnily. This included Victoria. Edward didn't even turn his head. He was just sitting there apathetically, chewing on a straw and not even drinking his coffee.

Sighing, Bella stumbled to the counter. Unfortunately, she still hadn't fully regained her nonexistent coordination, so she hit her hand against her Calculus textbook. As if that wasn't even enough injury to her _hand_, the Calculus book fell off the counter and hit her squarely in the knee. Bella didn't even cuss or yell. She just stared at her Calculus book. Her hand was red and she could swear that her knee was bleeding. Victoria stared at her intently, her brow furrowed. She didn't exactly look hostile but she was clearly disturbed by Bella's presence. Maybe she didn't like all the noise that Bella was making with her clumsiness.

Edward, on the other hand, flew out of his chair, knocking it down. Victoria looked even more disturbed as the chair fell with a deafening clatter to the floor. Edward immediately ran over to Bella.

"Bella, what are you doing?" Edward said, rather fervently. Bella rubbed her teeth together, hoping that maybe her mouth would be set on fire and she'd be spared the humiliation. Edward continued staring at her frantically, solemnly, as if instead of dropping a textbook on herself, she had been writhing on the floor, dying.

Bella stared at the ground for a full minute before she realized that Edward was holding her hand and stroking it gently. Slowly, she lifted her head and looked up at Edward's face. He looked so intense, it made Bella feel uncomfortable. Obviously, Edward was not yet aware that Bella did this sort of clumsy thing everyday, and there was really no need to spring out of a chair and stroke her hand. Victoria was staring at Bella with so intently, Bella felt like she could melt into a pitiful puddle right there.

"Hey, uhh… Edward. Maybe you should consider wearing some gloves. Your hands are ice cold," Bella said awkwardly. She obviously didn't react well in awkward situations. Scoffing, Edward let of Bella, turned away, and walked swiftly out of the shop. At that exact moment, the door opened with a cheery ding and Jacob strode in, whistling. Edward flew past him and out the door. Bella bit her lip as Jacob walked over the counter, with his eyebrows raised. Victoria continued to stare at Bella, strangely earnest but revealing no emotion. Finally, she stood up and walked out, leaving Bella confused.

"Well, what was all that about?" Jacob asked, his tone light, which was refreshing after Bella's most recent incident.

"I have no idea, but what's with those two?" Bella could still feel where Edward's smooth, soft, but cold hands had stroked her. She was now even more convinced that Edward was mentally unstable, as was his girlfriend. They were both pretty intimidating.

"I have no idea either," Jake snickered. Sighing, Bella resumed her Calculus homework, or her attempts at Calculus homework anyway.

Bella jammed the key into the lock for approximately the fifth time, only to be disappointed once again. Why wasn't the damn door opening? _Holy crap_, Bella fumed, frustrated. _I AM IN NO CONDITION TO DEAL WITH THIS RIDICULOUS DOOR. _Worn out, Bella leaned her weight on the door and hallelujah, the door swung open, causing poor little Bella to fall backwards on top of whatever criminal had broken into her dorm.

"Fatty, get off," the criminal grunted. Bella sprung up quickly and oh, looky there, the criminal was none other than a certain _Edward Cullen_.

"Holy shit, why are you in my dorm?" Bella asked, too confused to even be pissed. Edward shrugged.

"I didn't want to go home. The academy hasn't assigned me a dorm yet," he said.

"So you decided you'd just break into my dorm?" Bella asked.

"I switched your key with a fake while you were at the back of the shop," Edward said simply, as if this is what he did everyday in his spare time. Apparently, this was supposed to answer Bella's question.

"Oh, sure. Well then, you can do whatever but I have to do homework. Call if you want a Coke. We don't have any buy I'll be happy to drag my fat ass out to go get some," Bella said, taking off her sweater and tossing it onto her bed.

"You really don't mind me invading your dorm?" Edward asked quietly.

"Why should I mind? It doesn't matter to me, as long as you don't set off any bombs in here," Bella said, shrugging. Edward shook his head and smiled.

"You really are different," Edward said. Bella winced. _Right_.

"What sort of inhumane teachers give me so much homework on the first day? So these girls actually _do _things other than shop and make themselves pretty," Bella muttered, dropping her ten-ton backpack on the floor. Edward smiled. Bella pulled out her Science book. At least Calculus was done for the day.

Edward sat on the floor and watched Bella scribble frantic notes into her notebook. Advanced Physics really was the most fascinating subject to ever pop up onto the planet. Obviously why Bella was feeling sleepier and sleepier by every minute she was doing this.

After an hour or so, Bella threw down her pencil and sighed.

"What?" Edward asked.

"Quantum chemistry is ridiculously confusing," Bella said. Edward walked over and leaned down to look at Bella's notebook. His face was so close to Bella's, she could feel his warm, ragged breaths. He put his hand over hers and moved it aside as he read her textbook softly. Then, he looked at her in the eye, his own eyes a searing amber color and then began to explain slowly, in simple terms.

Bella tried to focus but unfortunately, his bright, golden eyes were a major distraction. She also noticed that his hand was still over hers, and it was warm. His hair occasionally fell down over his eyes, but he didn't bother to sweep it off his face.

After he finished explaining, they remained silent for a long time. The room was eerily quiet, except for the blizzard that was flipping cars over outside. Finally, Bella coughed slightly.

"Aheh… thanks. That clears things up considerably. Now, as opposed to a D, I'll get a C on this test tomorrow," Bella said, looking back to her textbook. She felt as if her head was standing up on edge and every part of her was shaking, as if she'd just been struck by lightning. Edward was still looking at her warily, his hand over hers, his arm pressed against her shoulder.

Suddenly, Alice skipped in. Bella hadn't even heard the lock turn. Alice came in, humming to herself and giggled when she saw Edward and Bella. It wasn't until Alice chuckled that Edward turned away from Bella and looked toward Alice. Alice smirked.

"Helloo. I brought Bella her uniform! Headmistress Winslet sent me up here," Alice said, laying down an outfit covered in plastic. Bella took one look at it and laughed.

"Oh my goodness! You must be kidding me! I am _not _wearing that!" Bella said. Alice raised her eyebrow.

"Yes, you are, unless you plan on being kicked out of the academy," Alice said. Bella had a hard time keeping herself from gagging. The blouse was white with frills at the bottom and at the collar. There were also ruffles at the ends of the short sleeves, and ruffles running down the shirt in straight lines. The vest that was supposed to go over it was plaid, green and gray. The shirt was also plaid, green and gray, and it about as long as Bella's underwear. It barely went past her butt.

"Oh, and it comes with shoes," Alice giggled and pulled out these fucking silver stilettos. Bella gawked incredulously.

"You're kidding me! I thought this academy was super-liberal! They can't require me to wear this uniform! That's sadist!" Bella practically shrieked. Edward snickered.

Alice raised her eyebrow. Bella banged her head against the desk as Alice flinched.

"Fiiine," she grumbled. Edward smirked some more. Alice's cell phone rang just then, with some pretty piano music. Alice sneered at Edward for a second before flipping the phone open.

"Oh, Jasper!… I'll be right there," Alice said into the phone.

"I need to go. Anyway, Bella, I hope you know the academy is giving the uniform to you for free. It costs 2,000 dollars at least," Alice said, waving, and leaving with a slam of the door.

Edward sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, reading. Bella went back to her Physics work.

"You got over your uniform spaz awfully quickly," Edward said suddenly.

"Yeah? I don't really make a big deal about trivial stuff for too long. I get over it," Bella said distractedly, still taking Physics notes.

"Do you care about your grades?" Edward asked, not looking away from his book.

"Yes," Bella said simply.

"Why?" Edward asked.

"I need to at least into a decent college. My dad's not working so I have to support him," Bella said, still taking notes.

"What about your mom?" Edward asked.

"She died. Car accident," Bella said simply. It was silent again, except for the sound of Bella's pen flying across the page.

After a while, Edward looked up from his book. Bella had fallen asleep. She was breathing softly. Edward pushed his hair back and sighed. He touched Bella's cheek and suddenly, Bella's hand sprang out and clung onto his arm. Wincing, Edward tried to pull his arm out. Unfortunately, her grip was too tight. He held onto her hand and pulled his arm out. She made a crying sound.

"Don't leave, don't leave. I love you," she murmured. At first, he thought she was speaking to him but her eyes were still shut. She was sleep-talking?

He took his sweater and threw it over Bella. Her lips curled up into a smile. _Alice will deal with her later_. Edward decided. He didn't want to get too close to Bella. He picked up his book and left the room.

Alice dialed Bella's number again, but still, nobody picked up. Jasper leaned against Alice's shoulder, playing with a strand of Alice's hair.

"I can't reach her. I'll leave a voice message," Alice said as Jasper kissed her on the neck.

"Hey, Bella. I hope your Eddie is taking good care of you. I can't go home tonight, honey. I love you, see you tomorrow," Alice said into the phone.

In the morning, sunlight came into the room with warm rays. Bella sneezed. She was sitting at her desk, Edward's sweater thrown over her shoulders. Nobody else was in the room. Bella got up and packed her stuff, and left for school, sneezing and coughing.

meh, the ending wasn't too cliff-hanger-yy. ohh well :P i think you can assume what happened to bella with all the sneezing and coughing .''


	4. Chapter 4

ok guysss. sorry i havent updated in several years .'' like i said, i have a LIFE xD anyway, this is a pretty short chapter too :( and anyway, DISCLAIMER!!! I DONT OWN TWILIGHT. the end. enjoy. REVIEW.

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CHAPTER 4

In the morning, sunlight came into the room with warm rays. Bella sneezed. She was sitting at her desk, Edward's sweater thrown over her shoulders. Nobody else was in the room. Bella got up and packed her stuff, and left for school, sneezing and coughing.

Bella could barely control her bike. She was feeling unusually dizzy and light-headed, as if she was going to faint. Furthermore, despite the fact that it was pretty cool outside, Bella felt extremely hot and sweaty, with occasional shivers scuttling down her back. She would have went home and crawled under her covers and fell into deep sleep, but it was only the second day of school, and she was not going to get into a decent college with a crapass attendance record. Therefore, she continued biking, her legs so fucking sore, she was either expecting them to turn into gelatin or to fall right off. At least if they were to fall off, it'd spare her the pain in her muscles.

Agonizingly, she screeched to a stop at the Academy. Oh, the shock, it turned out that there were no bike racks within a twenty-mile proximity of the building, considering that all the students there had other, more elite forms of transportation: private cars, limousines, private jets, cruise-liners, pet unicorns, etc. Therefore, Bella just leaned her bike awkwardly against a tree and stumbled on inside the building, looking like a drunken alcoholic who had just been pitifully dumped by a man-whore boyfriend or whatnot. Either way, even weeds seemed to rot away as she teetered by. All the other students looked at her as if she were Frankenstein. She felt just as horrifying.

She saw Edward leaning against a wall, skimming through his English book. Clearly, William Faulkner wasn't a huge interest to him because he yawned every two seconds or so. A massive group of girls were all swooning over him. You could practically hear the wistful sighs coming from the girls who passed him, as if they were radiating love. After flipping carelessly through some pages of the book for another three seconds, Edward noticed Bella standing a few feet away. Bella expected him to come over or to at least acknowledge her existence, but he seemed to look right through her, his expression completely blank and bored. He looked around stoically, completely overlooking Bella although she was right in front of him, looking a little disheveled and misshapen, but right in front of him nonetheless.

Suddenly, Bella felt a nauseous roll in the gut of her stomach. Bella was feeling so weak and sick, she could barely stand. She leaned against the wall and slid down, feeling the sweat dripping down her forehead. Goodness gracious. She screwed her eyes shut, feeling the ground swaying beneath her.

"What are you doing?" Edward asked sharply. Bella cracked open an eye and breathed heavily.

"I'm dying. And you?" Bella muttered. What was his problem?

He looked just as aloof and emotionless as ever, as if he had never met Bella before and she was a random stranger writhing on the ground in front of him, in his way to his first period class. Although even if she was a stranger, he could have at least helped her. She was clearly too woozy to even sit up straight. He just looked apathetically at Bella. For some reason, he wouldn't look her straight in the eye. Bella wondered what kind of reasons Edward should have for having such mood swings.

Bella was in no mood or physical condition to deal with this sort of ridicule at the moment. She panted a little and got up, moving out of the way of Edward, who pushed past her wordlessly. Picking up her backpack, she walked away. She tried her best to hurry to first period, and she managed to arrive right as the bell rang.

Edward was already in his seat. His bored, calm expression did not even twitch as Bella dragged herself into the room, and fell into her seat, drooping. It wasn't until she was safely sitting down that she realized that she wasn't just feeling physical pain. Why did she feel like she was going to cry? Maybe she just didn't know how to deal with disappointments. Clearly, she had thought Edward was going to be this cool guy, but it turned out that he didn't even want to know her, much less befriend her.

It had only been a day, but a pretty eventful first day of meeting each other. How could he pass out on her and invade her dorm one day, and then forget everything that happened the next? And to be honest, she didn't even know if this was a joke or what. She had no idea what was going on.

"Excuse me, Miss Bella Swan. Although you have only come to attend this academy this year, I am sure you have read the pamphlets distributed to newcomers and that you should be fully aware of the dress code, which explicitly forbids such casual footwear. And I regret to inform you, your shoes have far exceeded casual," the teacher spoke sharply, addressing Bella. Bella looked down at her shoes -- bright red chucks that were at least three years old, worn at the heels and ripped and ratty. She had drawn all over them with permanent marker and she had used duct tape and gaffer tape in order to hold the shoes together.

"Uhh…" Bella had nothing to say. The only shoes Bella could walk with were sneakers. The teacher looked very displeased, but fortunately, Alice skipped in late and immediately acknowledged Bella's presence. She swept to the back of the room and squealed excitedly.

"Oh, Bella! How was your night?" Alice asked. The teacher did not look happy with Alice's tardiness, not to mention her obvious disregard of her crime.

"Miss Cullen, please turn to the front of the class and refrain from speaking to your peers. This is not a social scene, it is a classroom," the teacher said shrilly. Alice rolled her eyes and turned around. Bella was too tired to chuckle.

The class resumed and the teacher had either forgotten about Bella's violation of the dress code or decided just to drop it.

Bella forced herself to stay awake for the day. She needed to pay attention, although she was often distracted because for the entire remainder of the day, Edward was not in attendance. This was a little perturbing but Bella decided she didn't want to think about Edward. If he wanted to pretend he didn't know her, then so be it.

She skipped lunchtime and went to sleep under a tree. She ignored all 5 text messages from Alice, and the two from Emmett. Bella cursed her pathetic immune system for this opportune time to strike her with disease. She slept peacefully until some rowdy freshmen screamed for no particular reason. She woke up with a start and found a bottle of Coke next to her backpack. Where did this come from? Bella was feeling particularly woozy. She decided she had probably bought a Coke before going to sleep and just forgot because of her obvious miserable state.

Damn it, I have to postpone my track audition. Bella, in all her fatigue and dizziness, pushed herself up. She stumbled off to the gymnasium. Coach Carter was in his office, yelping into the phone. Bella came in, tripping over a random rock or something and knocking down a few papers that were in sloppy stacks on the coach's desk. Coach Carter glared at her. Immediately, Bella haphazardly picked up the papers. Finally, Coach Carter hung up the phone.

"Who are you?" Coach Carter barked at Bella.

"Isabella Swan. I was wondering if I could try out for Track, sir," Bella said meekly. Coach Carter looked dubiously at Bella's pale skin, bony figure, flushed cheeks, pink nose, and bloodshot eyes.

"Fine. After school. Instantly. Be here. One second late and you miss your opportunity. Oh yeah, and pick up a form as you walk out," Coach Carter said before pointing to the door and looking at his papers. What an amiable guy.

Bella staggered out of Coach Carter's office, right into Edward Cullen. She didn't even bother to scream. Actually, she more coughed into his shirt. He still did not twitch a skin cell of his serene mask.

"Sorry," Bella muttered as she picked up the form she dropped. She was about to walk away but then, she decided that this was going to be on her mind for too long if she did not deal with it.

"Can you explain to me what the hell is going on with you? Did you hit your head on a rock and get amnesia, or are you just ignoring me on purpose?" Bella said. Edward raised his eyebrow and shrugged.

"Bella, I just think it'd be better if we weren't friends. Believe me, it's what's best. As a matter of fact, we should probably not even be acquaintances." That's all Edward said before he entered Coach Carter's office and shut the door behind him. Bella sighed.

So he had just decided he no longer wanted to be friends. Did he decide she was too poor? Too dumb? Too ridiculous? Too clumsy? Was he just incapable of making friends? After all, he seemed pretty reclusive. Maybe he just felt that friendships were a waste of time, time that could be better spent on… ? Skipping school? What did the guy even do when he was skipping school, anyway?

Questions whirled in Bella's head, making her even more tired and dizzy than she originally was. Could she make it to track auditions in the condition she was in? Coach Carter had made it clear that if she was even a second tardy to her try-outs, there was no hope of ever getting on the team for her. Why did she even bother? Why did she care so much about track? Why did she care so much about grades? Why did she care so much about Edward? Bella exhaled sharply.

"Bella!" Someone's melodic voice came from behind Bella. Bella knew it was Alice before her thin, gentle fingertips touched Bella lightly on the shoulder.

"Are you okay? Where have you been?" Alice asked, looking sincerely concerned. Bella felt like she might throw up. She really needed to get to a bathroom, maybe.

"Track try-outs… I needed to postpone," Bella said. At this point, it was hard for Bella to speak. She was having trouble breathing with how sick she was. Still, she had to push through the week. Then, she could get comfortable during the weekends and properly heal from her … little cold. How did she even get so sick? True, she hadn't been getting very much sleep and she didn't really like to put on jackets when she wet out into cold, 30 degree weather. But still.

Alice nodded and looking at Bella's shaking, wheezing form, the way she swept her hair out of her face, and the way she kept touching her heart. They were slight, impulsive motions, but present nonetheless.

"Is there something else? You can tell me, Bella," Alice said gently. Bella winced. She had only met Alice yesterday and Alice could already tell when Bella's insides were wrenching and tearing into miserable pieces. Not just because she felt like her intestines had dissolved to dust with sickness and her forehead was burning off her face with fever. But because of that dull, aching pain of confusion and disappointment, the soreness she felt from even meeting Edward. She felt humiliated for having to fallen into that trap. Why did she think she could be friends with a reclusive, strange, celebrity guy like Edward?

"Nothing's wrong, Alice," Bella said, proceeding with a spasm of coughs and wheezes. Bella felt like she might throw up. She hadn't even felt so horrible in the morning. Just a little weak. Now, she could barely stand.

"Do you need to go to the nurse's office? We have an excellent health administration at this academy. You should --"

"NO! NO WAYYY!!" Bella shrieked. She immediately regretted it, though, since screaming can be a huge waste of precious energy.

"Why not?" Alice looked dubious.

"No, that's not necessary. I'm really fine. I'll survive the day and go home and rest," Bella mumbled.

Alice was going to argue but suddenly the bell rang, demanding students hurry to class, so Bella was saved by the bell, hurrying off as fast as she could (which wasn't all that fast) off to class.

After school, Bella got her gym bag and went to the gymnasium. The weather was still gloomy as hell, increasingly depressing Bella.

She came into the gymnasium, and two other girls were there, already stretching. They were talking loudly to each other, not realizing that Bella had come into the gymnasium.

"Oh my god! You know the only reason why I even bothered to join Varsity was because I just heard at Lunch that Edward was signing up!" one of the girls said.

"No, Jessica, that's the lamest thing ever. Varsity is so rigorous, you need to be an Olympic gold-medal winner to survive this academy's varsity team. Do you think you'll even get onto the team?" the other girl said, who was doing crunches while Jessica sat and drank vitamin water.

"It doesn't matter. My parents are both on Board so I can get on whatever team I want," Jessica said.

The other girl bit her lip, "But then you have to stay after school everyday and run laps and do intense practices. Are you into it enough to go through all that? I mean, Edward Cullen can't be worth that much."

"Ugh. Whatever. Just run a little. Not that hard. By the way, what do you think even caused Edward to sign up for Track? You know, he's never taken extracurricular activities before and he has never been present in class for over half the day," Jessica said.

Suddenly, Bella put her bag down on the bench and both girls turned to look at her. Jessica's eyes immediately lit up with recognition.

"Hey! You're Bella Swan! So you're joining Track. That answers my question!" Jessica said, her voice instantly becoming shrill and squeaky. She immediately got up and started fluttering around Bella.

"Er. I'm sick, so you might want to stay away from me," Bella said dully. Jessica immediately backed off, but the excitement in her eyes was still visible.

She looked like she had over a million things to say, but then Coach Carter came into the gymnasium, holding a clipboard in one hand, an apple in his other hand, and a whistle in his mouth.

He dropped the whistle to speak, "All right, girls. You guys are in the late enrollment group, so I hope you know that your chances are slightly smaller than the other girls who tried out yesterday. Usually, I do not even allow late enrollments."

Bella was seeing two coaches because her vision was now dying along with her health. She stretched a little and then Coach blew the whistle for everyone to get behind the start line of the track.

He blew the whistle again, and the three girls started running. They had to run four laps and results were coming out the proceeding day.

Immediately after the whistle was blown, the two girls shot forward while Bella ran slowly. She wasn't sure it would be very healthy to push her body too far but then she decided just to screw it and shot forward, flying past both the girls.

For a moment, Bella felt an adrenaline rush. Everything around her seemed to crumble away. This is what she loved about running. There was nothing in her way, nothing to trip her or impede her or to stumble on or to crash into or just simply be a target of her clumsiness and ditziness. Running was so free and forward. Just go.

Bella had pretty much guzzled the bottle of Coke she had found next to her, so at least there was some caffeine in her system to keep her going. She didn't even feel that tired, although she did feel a little dizzy.

The silent buzz of the gym and the soft, consistent sound of footsteps was interrupted by a slam. Someone came in and said in low, cold voice, "Sorry I'm late, Coach."

This immediately hacked off Bella's energy buzz and she suddenly felt fatigued, dizzy, and nauseous.

The next thing she knew, she was on the ground and everything was blurry and dark and someone ran over to pick her up and then she was unconscious.

* * *

read and review, guys

sorry, short chapter


	5. Chapter 5

new chapter x.x sorry i'm slow updater. DISCLAIMER: i dont own twilight :)

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CHAPTER 5

Bella opened one eye and looked up to a blurry, bright white fluorescent light. She closed her eyes again and listened to the hum of… something. _Where am I? _She didn't feel like opening her eyes or moving. She felt her head throbbing, her pulse beating, her blood flowing. Her entire body was numb. _Where am I? Where am I? Where was I before? _For some reason, she had to think really hard. She felt her eyebrow twitch. She had been running laps outside the Gymnasium. She remembered the large, sprawling field of dead, yellow grass and the dirt tracks. How had she ended up here? Had she tripped over a rock and died? It was pretty possible, considering that it was Bella. Maybe this was heaven. Maybe she had forgotten to watch where she was going and ended up crashing into a tree. Ahaha. Now she was amusing herself.

She opened one eye and looked up. Still the same irritatingly bright fluorescent light shining down on her, hurting her eye. She felt something in her hand move slightly. She opened both her eyes and turned around. Edward was sitting, sleeping soundly against a chair. His usually cold hands were warm against hers. She turned a little and saw a bottle of Coke on the bedside table. _Huh. What happened_.

Suddenly, a man came in, wearing a conventional white doctor's coat. His hair was wispy and blonde. He was pale and lean, with a pleasant, flawless face. He looked amiably at Bella. He looked unusually familiar to Bella although Bella wasn't quite coherent enough to determine why. She felt really groggy and light-headed.

"Miss Swan, I see you are awake. How are you feeling?" the doctor said, smiling warmly while Bella burst into a spasm of coughs.

"Err… where am I? Bella gasped out. She felt beyond a little tired.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! You must have many questions! I am Dr. Carlisle Cullen and you are currently at my clinic. My son brought you here because you were unconscious," he said pleasantly. Bella winced wearily. She turned around and saw Edward holding her hand tightly, the bottle of Coke next to him on the table. So this was why the doctor looked so familiar. He was the famous doctor who had somehow acquired a celebrity status through his medical profession. And probably his gorgeous, way-younger-than-forty looks. Bella wondered what problems Edward was having with his family, since Alice had said that he ran away from home.

"Wh-what time is it?" Bella asked weakly.

"You've been sleeping for about two hours. It is now about 5: 00," Dr. Cullen said serenely, smiling.

"OH SHIT!" Bella dove out of bed, feeling her hand slide loose from Edward's warm, tight grasp. She felt a rush of fatigue as she jumped out of bed but she ignored it. She was still wearing her athletic clothes but fortunately, she spotted her bag next to her bed. She snatched it, along with the Coke next to the bed, and flew out of the room.

The doctor made no motion to stop her, smiling serenely as she flew past him. She erupted out of the hospital, just in time to realize she didn't know where the hell she was… in the middle of New York, with muggers lurking around, ready to come bash her over the head. She stopped and groaned. She had no form of transportation either.

SHE NEEDED TO GET TO HER JOB! It was only her second day, and she was already late? This kind of behavior would definitely get her fired. She sat on the stoop of the hospital and moaned. Running her fingers through her hair, she realized she probably looked like a mess too. She almost started crying but she decided this was not the time to be sulking. This was the time to get the hell away from the hospital before Dr. Cullen attacked her to go back and get some bed rest and drink some Tylenol. She stared at her ratty red shoes and her shorts. Shit, she just realized how cold she was.

She was going to search her bag for anything she could throw on to keep her warm but she heard someone walk out the door and stop behind her. She turned around, and Edward was standing behind her. His hair was sort of messy and he looked down at her calmly.

"What the hell are you doing?" he said softly.

"Why do you care?" Bella asked, her hair blowing into her face.

Edward smiled slightly, as if this was some private joke only he was privy to. Maybe he was laughing at her for being a disastrous wreck and still trying to save up some pride so she didn't look like a pathetic mess.

"I guess because I care about you," Edward said slowly, as if the words hurt. Bella raised her eyebrow at him, obviously not believing him.

"Are you schizophrenic?" Bella mumbled, turning away from his fucking beautiful face and rummaging through her bag for something to put on so her teeth wouldn't chatter like dominoes getting knocked over.

"Maybe.… I thought it'd be best if I weren't your friend. But I think I'm tired of trying," Edward said ambiguously. Bella rolled her eyes.

"Uhh… what is that even supposed to mean?" Bella asked. Edward sat down and stared at her as if this was the most obvious thing in the world and Bella was just too stupid to comprehend.

"It means… that I don't even know why you want to be friends with me. I have so many problems. Why are you okay with that? Not to mention, it would just be better for you to stay away from me and for me to stay away from you. But I guess I just got so tired of trying to stay away from you, and I'm giving up. It's up to you if you want to stay away from me or not, but consider yourself warned," Edward said. Bella gawked back at him, clearly confused.

"I don't speak German, but that's cool. I don't like things to be complicated, so let's just say we're friends," Bella said.

Edward gently touched her arm, looking earnest, and then nodded. He tossed her a sweater and got up. Bella looked at the sweater.

"You're kidding. Who went to Princeton?" Bella asked, pointing to the block letters sprawling across the sweater.

"My dad. But that's beside the point. Don't think you should be resting?" Edward said, pulling the sweater over Bella's head as if he were her mother, helping her get dressed.

"Hello. I have a job. And homework," Bella said. Edward sighed.

"I hope you know you had a fever of 103 degrees until just twenty minutes ago," Edward said.

"Yeah, fine. I've always recovered fast. But I can't get fired," Bella said, getting up.

"Gimme a ride?" Bella said. Edward looked doubtful.

"Fine, but you can only work for one hour and then I'm taking over for you," Edward said. Bella looked shocked.

"Wh-wh-whaat?" Bella said, wide-eyed.

"Obviously, you got sick because you were over-working yourself. So I'm taking over the rest of your shift. You still get the money, of course," Edward said.

"No way!! I can't let you do that!" Bella insisted.

"Uhh… obviously, you have to, otherwise, you can have fun walking there without knowing where you are either," Edward said simply.

Bella glared at him, and then sighed.

"Fine," she said unhappily. Edward laughed.

"You are one peculiar girl," Edward said.

"THIS IS YOUR CAR?!" Bella nearly passed out again. Edward raised his eyebrow and nodded.

"It's so high-tech and fancy, I don't even know what it is! I thought you ran away from home. Where do you get these ludicrous cars?!" Bella practically melted in her seat.

"Who told you I ran away from home? I guess I sort of ran away from home, since I'm living by myself. But I'm in very good terms with my family," Edward said. Bella stared at him sulkily as he drove. He chuckled when he saw her face.

"What?" he asked.

"You and your pretentious-ass car!" Bella said, and Edward burst into laughter. He was also speeding like crazy, lurching around corners like a madman.

"Dear Edward, I like to speed occasionally too but if you drive any faster, I might not make it to work without breaking a bone or two," Bella said. Edward laughed and drove even faster, causing Bella to shriek.

"Oh, phew. We're finally here, and I'm all intact. This is shocking except that I might be missing a heartbeat or two,"

Edward didn't say anything as he got out of the car. Bella stumbled out as well. Obviously, she had not yet fully recovered from her little blackout earlier in the day. She really didn't want to think about how she looked. She probably looked as presentable as a chicken wearing a _Princeton _sweater. Actually, that's probably exactly what she looked like. Nevertheless, she ruffled her hair and walked into the shop, Edward following.

"Bella! You're fifteen minutes late!" Mrs. Prince exclaimed as Bella dragged herself inside despondently.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I had a situation," Bella muttered as she went into the back and dumped her bag into a locker. Mrs. Prince's eyes followed Bella. She looked concerned but did not say anything, just went back to rolling the dough or whatever.

Jacob came into the back room and poked Bella, causing her to jump.

"YIKES! Oh, Jake. What's up?" Bella said, pulling a pair of jeans out of her bag. Thank God she had thrown a bunch of random clothes into her bag this morning. She had planned on changing into some normal clothes after school, so she wouldn't be teetering around in a tutu and matching blouse.

"What's up with you? Why are you late?" Jake asked.

"Ugh, it's my life. If I'm ever actually early or on time, you need to get instantly suspicious because it's probably an alien taking over my body. Jake chuckled.

Bella pulled her hair back in a ponytail and stood up. Jake touched her arm.

"I… I think your hair looks good when it's up," Jake whispered, staring at Bella intently. Bella instantly felt uncomfortable. This wasn't awkward at all.

"Haha, thanks, Jake. I'm sure your hair looks pretty great when it's up too. But I've got to go and change into some jeans," Bella said. Jake looked away immediately and walked outside without a word.

Bella stared after him and sighed, blowing at her bangs. What was up with the world today? She just sat on the ground for a moment, leaning against the wall. She closed her eyes and felt the world spinning, spinning, thudding, throbbing, crashing, breaking. What was going on?

She finally got up and walked to the bathroom to change into her jeans. They were gray, with neon green pinstripes. She remembered buying them back before everything, before everything was crashing down and the world ended. She almost cried as she put them on. Looking in the mirror, she was deathly pale. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked like she hadn't slept in ages. Her eyes were sort of blotchy and her hair was screwy. She remembered Jacob words.

_Your hair looks good when it's up_.

Bella groaned and wrenched out the hair band, letting her hair fall. Then, she walked outside. Jacob was cleaning the counter. When Bella walked over, he turned and smiled. Bella waved meekly.

"Bella, dear, could you please go and clean the tables? A massive group of rowdy teenagers just left and there's obviously a huge mess. Oh, and then – goodness gracious, dear! You look like you just came back from the dead. What happened?" Mrs. Prince came bustling over, looking concerned.

"I'm just a little sick," Bella muttered.

"Don't be ridiculous, child! I refuse to let you work in such conditions. Go home. Now," Mrs. Prince exclaimed.

"But, Mrs. Prince, you don't understand! I have to earn money! I –" Bella didn't finish. Mrs. Prince looked at her dubiously.

"Well then, fortunately for you, someone has already offered to fill in for you, so you can get your butt on home and get some rest and so that you'll look healthier tomorrow," Mrs. Prince said. As if on cue, Edward looked up from his newspaper, got up, and walked over.

"Bella, go home," he said, touching her shoulder. Bella stared at him, his amber eyes seeming to burn a hole through her head.

"Do you always get what you want?" Bella whispered, feeling him stroke her hair gently.

"No, but I always get what I need. And I need you to go home and sleep. And if I catch you doing homework, I'll get you," Edward said.

Bella sighed. She went to the back room and got her bag. Jacob waved as she left, and Edward pulled on her hair.

Bella walked outside and fucking hell, it was cold. Why was the weather so cold? It was only September for goodness' sake! Suddenly, she remembered! She was still wearing Edward's sweater! She went back into the shop. Nobody was at the counter. Mrs. Prince was in the corner, talking to someone on the phone. There were a few people in the shop, having coffee.

Bella went to the back, and nearly pushed open the door before she heard Edward and Jacob whispering in low voices. She grew suspicious and crouched down, listening to them.

"You love her, don't you?" Jacob said.

"What if I am?" Edward said.

"Why?" Jacob asked.

"I want to live because of her."

"Have you never wanted to live before?" Jacob demanded, his voice rising.

"Maybe I did once. But she makes me want to live just to make her happy," Edward said, packaging off the box of fudge brownies. He took the Sharpie and scribbled onto the box, before perching it back onto his ear.

"So does that make us rivals?" Jacob asked quietly.

"It doesn't matter to me," Edward said.

He opened the door and found Bella sitting on the floor, crying into his sweater. She threw it at him, stood up, turned, and ran away.

"It doesn't look like you make her very happy," Jacob smirked behind Edward.

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haha i always try to leave cliff-hangers xD


	6. Chapter 6

_Bell burst from the shop and continued running, without any idea where she was going. She did not even turn around at the concerned and confused calls of Mrs. Prince. She did not pause for a single breath, though she knew she hadn't fully recovered from her little blackout earlier in the day. She felt like every limb on her body was on the verge of crumbling to dust. If she stopped for even a second, she may dissipate. She knew she would break and start crying again if she stopped to think. She didn't even know why she had run away. Wouldn't any other teenage girl on the planet have been ecstatic and immediately have started planning their wedding? Why couldn't Bella be like normal, hormonal girls? She stopped and sighed, sitting on the ground with her arms around her legs, staring at her shoes._

_Somehow, she just couldn't deal with two guys she'd only known for two days talk about being in love with her when everyone at the Academy knew that she could barely compete with any other girl at the Academy, much less that Victoria girl. They were all just playing with Bella's feelings, waiting to see how badly she'd crack. After all, how could a random low-class, lame, tacky, ice cream-whoring, ripped jeans-wearing person like her ever belong at the highest-class private school in the nation? _

_Bella sat on a bench, realizing for the first time that she was in the middle of a park. She didn't realize there were parks in New York City that she'd never heard of. As a matter of fact, she'd only ever heard of Central Park or something. Mothers were pushing strollers around, topless losers were jogging, and some kids were jumping rope. The whole scene was so peaceful, Bella was feeling dizzy again. She finally lay down in the green-yellow grass, waiting for her heartbeat to slow, looking at the cerulean blue sky seep through the treetops. She turned up her iPod to the maximum volume and lay down in the cold grass until she fell asleep._

_Bella was falling, falling, falling. She landed lightly on her feet but she was still feeling dizzy. She was looking into a mirror. Everywhere, she was surrounded by mirrors. Everywhere, she saw the same old Bella looking back at her, her plain hair, her pale face, her skinny arms clutching her hair. Victoria came in, smirking, looking a hundred times bigger than Bella, and two hundred times more gorgeous. She was looking back at Bella through the mirror._

_Suddenly, Victoria shattered the mirror, a million shards flying everywhere. Bella saw them pierce her bare skin. Red tendrils of blood flew oozed out of the cuts, mixing with the silvery glints of a million mirror pieces. Somehow, Bella must not have been thinking coherently. Her head was spinning and she couldn't panic. All she could think of was how pretty the mirror shards and her drops of blood were. _

_The pieces fell into place like a puzzle right in front of Bella, and Bella's mother looked at Bella. _

"_Bella. Bella, do you miss me? Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella. Why didn't you come with me to the supermarket that one day? Why did you let me get killed? Why? Why? Why? Bella, how could you let me die? I'm dead because of you," her whisper was haunting and low, the same dull, rhythmic tone. Bella's head was still whirling, spiraling down and up, in and out. She saw her mother fade from the mirror, replaced by Bella's plain face, her eyes huge and ghostly._

_After Bella's mother subsided, Mike, Eric, and Taylor appeared in the mirror, their handsome faces glaring and strangely deformed as if they weren't real._

"_Bella. It was your fault, your fault. It was all your fault. We died because of you. You didn't come to the dance with any of us so we got drunk in depression. So when we were driving to the dance together, we all died in a car accident. So why didn't you choose one of us? You broke us, you broke us," their voices were taunting but weary. Bella choked back a sob, as she felt someone touch her shoulder. She turned around and Edward stood there, smiling._

"_Bella, I love you," he mouthed just as he suddenly fell to the ground. His eyes became empty and his hands became infinitely colder than they usually were. The mirror shattered once again and drowned Edward, smiling peacefully and dead._

"_EDWARD! EDWARD!! NO!" Bella shrieked._

The rustling of leaves as the wind blew through them woke Bella in a panic. She was crying and still screaming. Beads of sweat rolled down her neck. It was pitch black outside, except for the street light's meek yellow light and the moon's pale light, illuminating the treetops. Bella's iPod was still playing. It was so loud.

_If to know you is to love you, then loving you must be suicide._

_Green Day _was screaming into Bella's ear, filling every inch of her being. It was too bad that Bella's heart was turned off and couldn't hear a word Billy Joe or whatever-his-name-was singing. Bella thought she'd stopped listening to _Green Day _when she was thirteen years old. Honestly, listening to _Jackass _was sort of nostalgic.

Bella got up and rubbed her eyes. She realized that Edward's sweater had been thrown onto her. No wonder she wasn't a block of ice yet. She turned around, to see Edward sitting right there, messing with her iPod. He stared at her for what felt like forever, his amber eyes searing.

"1,900 songs? That is pretty impressive," Edward smiled wryly. Bella stretched and leaned on Edward's shoulder.

"As impressive as your 5,100 songs?" Bella said sleepily.

"How do you know I have 5,100 songs?" Edward asked.

"Magazine interview. My friends were all obsessed with _NeonEternity _and I stole their magazines when I was bored. I didn't even know they made iPods with enough memory to hold 5100 songs," Bella said.

"Magazine interview? Oh, I remember that," Edward said. 

"Yeah. What time is it?" Bella asked.

"9 00 pm," Edward responded, looking at the time on Bella's iPod.

"How did you find me?" Bella asked.

"Magic," Edward said, smiling. 

"I have homework today," Bella mumbled, half-conscious. Edward scoffed. Bella shivered. Edward put her head in his lap and he played with her hair while she sneezed.

"Why are grades that important to you?" Edward asked, "So important that you'd rather go to school and suffer rather than stay at your dorm and sleep."

"Why shouldn't grades be important to me? I let my mom down once and I need to make it up to her. She had so many dreams for me and I never listened to her until it was too late," Bella mumbled.

"You were screaming her name in your sleep. What happened?" Edward asked. 

"My mom. When she married my dad, she dropped out of her first year of college and pretty much became a housewife. She was never really into staying in the house and cleaning up after Dad and me, so she got bored and starting getting a little into drugs. Still, she was a great mom and she didn't want me to make the mistake she did. She wanted me to come to this Academy, get into Princeton, and become a doctor. I was never really into becoming successful. Back then, I just wanted to hang with my friends and slide by with average grades. I just did whatever I wanted to do. My mom always called me smart, but I didn't care. Then, one day, she was going to the supermarket. She'd just been smoking and she was a little loopy, sort of high. She asked me to come along to the supermarket, but I'd invited my friends over to watch a movie. I told my mom I couldn't go so she went off by herself and got into a car accident. I was such a shitty, selfish daughter. My mom did everything for me and I couldn't even go to the supermarket with her. If I'd been with her, I could have done something, anything," Bella was practically talking to herself. Her nightmare came back to her and she shut her eyes. Everything was sore. Edward was stroking her hair and he blew at his bangs. 

"You know that I met you before you came to this Academy? When I was fifteen, a few months ago, _NeonEternity_ had a tour all over the world and then you were at one of them, I remember. You were with this girl who had passes to go backstage. You were the only girl there who wasn't throwing herself at us. You hung out backstage and you were talking to your friend, and I heard you. Do you remember what you said?" Edward said.

"Not really," Bella said, chuckling. 

"Back then, your hair was sort of short and your bangs covered your eyes. And you sat back there in the exact same jeans you are wearing right now. And you said, 'Damn, this band is lame. Think about their lyrics, they're so superficial. They're practically satirizing teenagers' hormonal angst. Forget about romance, they're pretty much just telling us that guys are horny and girls are bitchy. Their entire album is a parody. Is any of it supposed to mean something?'"

"Uh, yes. Well, see, back then, I was sort of conceited and I thought it was really cool being a bitch and shock all my friends who worshipped _NeonEternity_," Bella said. 

"Yeah, maybe you were conceited. But maybe you have the right to be conceited. Do you know who the lyricist of the band was?" Edward asked. 

"Um. No. Sorry," Bella said, staring at Edward blankly.

"It's me," Edward said, laughing. Bella stared at him.

"When I joined the band, I was tired of all the same bands that all had the same things to say about love and drugs and life and shit. So I wrote lyrics that were pretty much mocking the same mainstream music. I didn't know why I started to do it. Maybe I was just bored and conceited, like you. Somehow, I thought everyone would get it but nobody did. They thought my lyrics were beautiful. I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know how to say that all my lyrics were bullshitting other bands' lyrics. Obviously, if your audience just doesn't get the meaning of your music, it becomes meaningless to you too. So I got bored with the band. Who would have thought that a simple girl with neon pinstriped jeans and a black t-shirt would've gotten it but not anyone else? So, you see, you knew me better than anyone else in the world before you'd even talked to me," Edward said.

"That's funny," Bella whispered. The white glow of the moon made Edward look even paler, his eyes even brighter. He was so pretty and talented and amazing, why was he stroking _Bella's_ hair? When he was a piano prodigy, all the girls in Bella's class were convinced that each and every one of them was in love with him. They put posters of him up in their locker, stuck pictures of him all over their notebook, set his face as the background on their cell phone. Suddenly, his piano music replaced all the rock songs that played on mainstream radio stations. Recordings of his concerts were one of the most watched videos on Youtube. He was fucking _everywhere_. And here a plain girl like Bella was with her head on his lap. When Edward became _Eddie_, and he joined _NeonEternity_, he became an even bigger celebrity, his cute face becoming older, dark eyeliner lining his eyes, his lips and ears getting silver piercing, and his short hair growing out. So why was _Edward Cullen _here, telling Bella that she was meant for him? What was wrong with this picture?

"What do I mean to you?" Bella asked. 

"I'm not sure. For now, I just want to be like this. You make me want to live, even if for just a little longer," Edward said. Bella was about to ask what the hell that meant, but her phone rang. It was Alice.

"Oh shit," Bella said, as she picked up her phone.

"Hi," Bella said as Edward laughed.

"BELLLAAA!! DEAR LORD! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?! YOU SAID THAT YOU WOULD BE HOME BY 7 AND HONEY, IT'S ALMOST 10. WHERE ARE YOU?! I CALLED YOU SO MANY TIMES ND LEFT YOU A MILLION TEXT MESSAGES AND YOU IGNORED EVER YONE OF THEM!" Alice shrieked. Bella had to hold the phone at least a foot away from her ear. Edward laughed at the sound of Alice's shrill voice.

"What's my excuse?" Bella mouthed desperately to Edward. Edward was on the ground, laughing. Finally, he took the phone from Bella.

"Hello, Alice?" His voice was suddenly dead serious, not a laugh left in him. Bella rolled her eyes. 

"MY DEAR BROTHER, EDWARD CULLEN! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY BELLA?! I HOPE YOU'RE AWARE THAT SHE WAS SICK!" Alice said, not a single singsong note in her voice.

"Oh dear, Alice. I am so sorry. I just took Bella to dinner because while at work, she said was hungry but too tired to go anywhere. Anyway, then at dinner, she fell asleep so I took her to the park and we fed birds. Yeah, so while she was sleeping, I turned off her phone. And now, we're … uhh… at the zoo. It doesn't close for another two hours," Edward said. What a great liar.

"Ugh, well, I hope you don't plan on _staying _there for another two hours," Alice growled. She could be vicious. 

"Certainly not, Alice. As a matter of fact, I'll be taking Bella to her dorm right now. There is no need to worry, Alice," Edward said calmly. 

"You bet you are bringing Bella to her dorm right now, Edward. Clearly, you have no experience bringing girls out on dates, because in case you are not aware, they have CURFEWS," Alice said menacingly.

"And you're her mother now, Alice?" Edward said, clearly amused.

"Oh, shut up, Edward, and bring my kid home," Alice said, chuckling. Edward smiled and hung up. 

"Time to get you home," Edward said, laughing as he handed Bella's phone back to her. Bella got up lazily and stretched.

"Fuck, I have homework," Bella grumbled.

"Oh, it's all some simple stuff. It always is your first few days of school. I'm finished. If you need any help, I'll be happy to help you," Edward said calmly.

"Curse you and your being amazing at everything, you horrible person," Bella grumbled as she crawled into Edward's car.

"Oh my lord, Edward. I may just have to kill you. HOW MANY CARS DO YOU HAVE?" Bella exclaimed, upon realizing that the car she was riding was different, and possible even MORE high-class, than the car she had been riding to work earlier in the day.

"Why is everyone screaming at me today? I have feelings, you know," Edward said, starting up the car.

"Right. Sorry," Bella mumbled and leaned back in the leather seat. 

"The English paper should be pretty simple for you, since after all, you got into the Academy based on your excellence in Humanities. Math is just a few problems. I'll help if you want. Science is a bunch of random crap. Mr. Kantor really cannot teach. He confuses himself. And that's basically it," Edward said simply.

"Edward, why did you come find me?" Bella whispered.

"What?" Edward asked, bringing the speed up to 60 miles per hour in a 35 mph lane. He cruised by a green light and turned around to look at Bella.

"Why did you come find me? I ran away, crying. Why would you come looking for me?" Bella asked.

"I wanted to leave you alone and Jacob said it'd be better to let you chill out. I also told myself that if you left me on your own choice, I wouldn't do anything and I'd let you. Obviously, if I can't leave you, you'd have to leave me. But then, in the end, I wasn't even strong enough to do that. I had to come find you and see if you were okay," Edward said.

"Ugh, you're so fucking cryptic sometimes. Why would you have to leave me? I don't get it," Bella mumbled. Edward chuckled. 

"Why should this have to be a soap opera? Why can't you just enlighten me?" Bella asked. Edward shook his head, just as he swerved into the parking lot of the Dorm Building.

Upon arriving into the dorm, Alice practically pounced onto Bella. 

"BELLLLAAAAAA!" Alice sang, giving Bella a tight hug. Bella chuckled.

"Hi, Alice. Sorry about today. I'm really irresponsible!" Bella said. Alice smiled.

"Oh dearest, no, it's not your fault at all. I will deal with Edward later, but you just go and take a nice hot shower. There's grass in your hair and stains on your jeans. Meanwhile, EDWARD!" Alice's tinkling voice changed drastically to a bark, and she immediately turned to Edward, who did not look even slightly intimidated. What a family of creeps. Bella snuck away and went to take a shower.

"Edward, I know that Rosalie disapproves of your choice, but I decided that I'd let you do this. I think we all know that this will hurt her but you ARE going to tell her, aren't you?" Alice whispered. Bella wished that the rush of water wasn't so damn loud.

"Alice, will you bring it down a notch? I will tell her. I just need to decide the right time. Right now, I don't want anything beyond friendship. The more intense this gets the more painful and screwed-up it will be," Edward said.

"That's why, Edward, you have to tell her as soon as possible. The more you let her stay ignorant the more she'll be upset and hurt when she finds out. You can't hide this from her forever, and definitely not before…. You know what I mean," Alice said.

"But, Alice. You just don't understand. It's so hard to hurt her. She's so strong and so understanding, and somehow, I just can't hurt her like that," Edward said,

"Edward, you need to stop being so noble and start thinking of the future," Alice insisted quietly. 

They both stopped when they saw Bella come into the room.

"BELLA! Don't you take a short time at showers?" Alice said breezily.

"Fifteen minutes?" Bella said. She looked from Edward to Alice.

"Tell me what's going on," Bella said. 


	7. Chapter 7

ks;ldhj a;fdlkghag EXTREEEMELY LATE UPDATE. so sorry so sorry so sorry.

BY THE WAY, twilight does not belong to me! DISCLAIMER

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Chapter 7

Alice looked nervously at Edward. His eyes were narrowed and he suddenly took an intense interest in the ground.

"..," Bella repeated quietly, intensely.

"It's not my secret to tell," Alice whispered hoarsely, at the same time that Edward said "It's not your business."

Bella's eyes widened. Edward looked away and Alice stared at him with wide eyes. Bella was holding back the urge to cry and the urge to throw a lamp at Edward's head. Perhaps, it wasn't exactly out of the question to do both, maybe even at the SAME time. Perhaps under the awe of Bella's multitasking skills, Edward would be intimidated into telling her what the hell was going on. However, Bella wasn't sure she had the energy to go all the way over to her bedside lamp, unplug the stupid thing, and then lunge it at him. Furthermore, she probably did not have the money to go off and buy a new one, which was unfortunate. Mainly, however, Bella just didn't want to seem like a crazy, insane bitch, especially with the rumor mill at the academy running rapidly at all hours of the day and missing pretty much nothing. But the impact of a lamp on Edward's head could deflate his ego considerably, which seemed enticing...

Bella realized too late that her lips were curled up in a rather mischievous and evil smile.

"What are you thinking about?" Edward asked, smirking. Bella was incredulous. As if he still had the right to ask completely random questions when he was hiding things from her and refusing to be interrogated even though he had NEARLY been caught red-handed!

"I am considering throwing a lamp at your head and wishing this was the Spanish Inquisition, in which I think it would be legal for me to torture you into telling me everything you know," Bella said, smirking back. Edward's formerly solemn expression was immediately spoiled and his lips curled up into a smile.

Alice just looked confusedly from Bella to Edward and back, wondering how in the world all the intensity just magically flew out the window.

Reading Alice's mind, Edward said, "Bella has the ability to do that."

"Well, I mean, whatever, I s'pose. I guess you'll tell me when you're ready and if you're never ready, then I'll just have to beat you with a rake!" Bella said, heaving a sigh. She wasn't the type to pressure people and she didn't want to pressure Edward. She trusted him and even though Alice said that Bella would get hurt in the end, Bella was a big girl and whatever creepy secrets Edward wanted to keep hidden could be endured. Although all this stalling was getting infuriating. Bella tended to be an impatient girl...

"Well, as long as he isn't in the mafia, I guess..." Bella mumbled to herself, causing Edward and Alice to burst out into raucous laughter. Well, raucous is an incorrect word. Edward smirked and Alice tinkled.

"Let's just enjoy the days we have together for now," Edward said, which sounded pretty suspicious, as if their days together were numbered. Bella glared at him.

"And WHAT exactly is THAT supposed to mean, _Eddie?_" Bella said scathingly. She did NOT enjoy the idea that their days together were limited. If Edward didn't want to be open about it, Bella could do some private detective work on her OWN! She could absolutely envision herself in an ugly trenchcoat, big sunglasses that could be mistaken for tinted science goggles, tight leather pants that squeaked whenever she tried to do that ducking-somersaulting-jumping-ninja thing, and also the overall sex appeal of putting her hands together and making a gun while hiding behind a brick wall... and just looking overall sexy and ominous. Her daydreams were immediately shoved aside as Bella realized that she should be being suspicious!

"I don't mean anything by it," Edward said.

"You are impossible!" Bella said.

Alice tinkled around in the background.

SATURDAY....

_DING DONG! DING DING DING DONNNNNNNNG! _Only someone superhuman could have been able to ring the doorbell so fast and so hard. Bella immediately sprang out of bed and bashed her head against the headboard of her bed. The impact woke her up instantly from her former grogginess. In the mirror, she saw her flushed face and crazy hair sticking up in various different directions, like a pine tree. She decided to ignore the insistent rings and go back to sleep. She was having extremely pleasant dreams of beating up chickens or something...

DINNG DONG!! Bella grunted, sprang out of her bed, and opened the door. Emmett's large build seemed to fill up the entire doorway. Rosalie's thin figure was standing by him. She did not appear to be particularly pleased.

"What are you guys doing here at the crack of dawn?" Bella mumbled, rubbing her head and trying to get her hair to smooth over and perhaps bear less resemblance to a tree.

Rosalie snorted and said, "It's 10 AM. Hardly the crack of dawn!"

"Where's Alice?!" Emmett asked. Bella shrugged, and Alice appeared from the kitchen, looking very pretty and all dressed for spring, even though it was a chilly autumn-starting-to-transition-to-winter day. It was sunny outside but still pretty cold, although there were only gentle breezes and no wind. Alice's collared t-shirt and cute skirt seemed hardly the right outfit for the climate, but she did not appear at all to be aware of this.

"Bella! Oh my god! There was all this weirdness last night and I completely forgot tell you that we've all made arrangements to go to Wonder Park!" Alice said, entirely far too peppy for the crack of dawn... err, 10 AM in the morning.

Bella could only assume that this "we" referred to the Cullen family and excluded Bella. She decided that she was not exactly prepared to send them off, considering her tree-resembling hair and pajamas. She stood there awkwardly, wondering why nobody was making any motion to depart for Wonder Park. What in the world was Wonder Park anyway?

"Well, what are you standing there for?! Get ready! We'll be leaving in twenty minutes, darling!" Alice said, grinning. Bella stared at Alice incredulously for a second. WHY OH WHY!

"HURRY UP!" Alice said, giggling and pushing Rosalie and Emmett out the door to let Bella get ready in privacy. Bella didn't even know what to think. And also, what the HELL was Wonder Park? A playground?

"It's an amusement park," a voice called. Bella nearly jumped and hit her poor head against the ceiling. She turned around to find Edward climbing in through the window.

"WHAT ARE YOU, TARZAN?! THIS IS THE THIRD FLOOR! HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET UP HERE!" Bella exclaimed.

"I'll make you breakfast while you get dressed," Edward said evenly. Bella sighed. Why couldn't these people pop in when she had finished combing her hair and wasn't wearing her pajamas (which consisted of an enormous BLINK!182 t-shirt and boy shorts)?

Edward had already proceeded into the kitchen. Bella took a five-minute shower, washed her hair, and brushed her teeth. She pulled a t-shirt and jeans out of her suitcase (she still hadn't unpacked, unfortunately). Noticing the chilly weather, she pulled a sweater over and pulled her ratty shoes on. She could already hear Alice tisking at her shabbiness.

Drying her hair off with a towel, Bella went into the kitchen. Wearing a flowery apron, Edward leaned over to Bella and kissed her on the cheek. She turned around and kissed Edward on the nose.

Meanwhile, Edward put some toast and fried egg on a plate and put it down on the table. Bella scarfed it down and proceeded to let Edward feed her OJ.

Bella was about to charge out the door, when Edward proceeded to pull her back by holding onto her hand. He looked at her meaningfully, and they went out the door together. It seemed chillier than Bella had expected. She could see the little puffs of air coming out of her mouth when she breathed. She looked around. Alice and Jasper were making out grossly, while Rosalie and Emmett were mounting bikes.

"We're going there on _bike_?" Bella asked, clearly not having expected this. There were no fancy, high-class cars in sight.

"Yes, Rosalie suggested it. Is there a problem? Don't you go everywhere on your bike?" Edward asked, chuckling as he mounted his own bike. Bella noticed with extreme frustration that their entire family had bicycles even more high-class than their stupid SUVs. She would not have been surprised to find that once Edward stepped on one of the pedals, the bike would shoot fire and blast off like a rocket and fly off to the moon. Perhaps this was TOO far-fetched, but still, Bella could already tell that the bike she had jacked from the drooling twelve-year-old was going to be embarrassingly plebeian. The brakes didn't even work right 70% of the time.

"Hurry and get your bike, Bella! We still have to pick up Hailey!" Rosalie said. Bella was not aware until now that Rosalie and Hailey were friends. Bella had a feeling that Rosalie had only invited the stupid girl just to piss Bella off. Honestly, Bella didn't see what was so disgusting about her that Rosalie had to dislike her so thoroughly.

"She's jealous," Edward whispered. Bella wondered about what, but at Rosalie's intimidating glare, Bella decided that this was not the time to ask. She immediately went to get her bike. She was almost positive Rosalie had suggested riding bicycles there because she knew that Bella's bike was most likely constructed in a cave during the Stone Age.

Off they rode. Bella was beginning to get irritated with all of Rosalie's whining about her hair and also her progress of about 0.05 miles an hour, but Bella was VERY VERY VERY good at controlling her temper (yeah, right) and the feel of cold wind against her cheeks and playing with her hair made her feel too good to really care all that much.

Finally, they arrived at dear Hailey's house. God knew how anyone could spend so long in the bathroom, fixing mascara and waxing eyebrows or whatever Hailey was doing.

She came out with a miniskirt that was so short it could pass of as denim underwear. She was wearing an extremely tight tank top. Bella was beginning to wonder if Hailey was superhuman, since such a tank top had to cut off any _human's _circulation. But the most frightening was Hailey's silver Jimmy Choo pumps, which had heels so high and thin, Bella could have threaded it and used it to _sew_.

"Ehma-ehmagawd, Rosie! You never told me we were going there on _bike_. I'm totally not prepared. I don't have _any _proper shoes. I only have these _ugly _Coach sneakers. I definitely do _nawt _have a bike!" Hailey said, with a nauseatingly flirtatious wink in Edward's direction. Then, in what she probably thought was a sneaky whisper, she said to Rosalie, "And what is _she_ doing here?" obviously looking at Bella.

Bella was beginning to wonder if Hailey had jumped out of one of those CLIQUE books, those stupid ones by Lisi Harrison with all the ehmagawd-ing.

Rosalie snickered and said, "Well, since you don't have a bike, Hailey, I guess you're going to have to share one with Edward. Alice and Jasper are already sharing a bike. Emmett is _wuh-ay _too large. I certainly don't want someone clutching me while I try to concentrating on biking. I'm sure that Edward will be way more generous."

Edward glanced indifferently at Hailey and signaled her to get onto the bike. Alice called for everyone to start biking.

Hailey was squeezing the guts out of Edward before they'd even started biking. Edward pretended not to notice. Bella did her best to pretend not to notice either, but she honestly couldn't care less anyway.

Bella and Edward biked next to each other, talking about whatever. They were laughing insanely (or only Bella was laughing insanely, while Edward snickered like he always did), while Hailey desperately tried to shove something into the conversation and constantly whining to Edward about how cold she was, who didn't really care. Poor girl, poor girl. At least she was of the rich and beautiful type.

Hailey had _no _idea what it felt like to be the plain Jane of a group of the rich and famous. Bella was like a weird, ugly rock among a bunch of glittery diamonds.

Ignoring the depression of being a stupid rock, she was all happiness and energy the rest of the way to the amusement park, chatting with everyone but Rosalie. She even managed to make some awkward conversation with Hailey about all these brand names Bella had never heard of (what the hell was Looney Mitten? Loo-ey Vitton?).

Finally, the crew arrived at Wonder Park. There was nobody there; the place was freaking DESERTED.

"Uhm... are you sure this place has opened to the public yet?" Bella asked dumbly.

"We rented it for the day. Obviously, we can't go while there are all these people there. I, for one, don't want to be whored by a bunch of insane fans who watched _The Last Door_," Alice said, laughing lightly.

_The Last Door _was apparently some new horror movie, featuring Alice as a cold-blooded ghost or something...

Bella, for one, knew that she wouldn't ever be able to watch one of Alice's horror movies, knowing how Alice really was, completely not demonic or frightening in any aspect.

Furthermore, Bella felt ridiculously stupid for forgetting that she was with a troop of celebrities, and sauntering casually into a crowded amusement park was pretty much impossible.

Immediately once they were in the amusement park, Edward and Bella were "accidentally" separated from the rest of the group. Edward said he was going to get ice cream and dragged Bella along. He bought her some Dippin' Dots.

"You're very strange," Edward said, when they were sitting at an extremely filthy table near the ice cream stand.

"Why?" Bella asked, scooping the ice cream into her mouth.

"Well... I was being immature and you didn't play along at all," Edward said. Bella sighed. Once again! Being so cryptic!

"Really? How so?" Bella said.

"I expected you to be angry and jealous when Hailey was on that bike with me. But clearly, you're not like any other girls because you didn't seem to care at all and I was getting irritated," Edward said, scooping ice cream into his mouth. Bella stared at him.

"You really think I'm the type of person to be jealous of a weird girl with an IQ that's probably on the wrong side of the number line?" Bella said.

"Evidently not. Harsh, Bella. I'm sure her IQ is at least in the right side of the number line," Edward said.

"Evidently not," Bella imitated Edward, "if she is going to wear what appears to be a _bathing suit _in 40-degree weather."

Edward smiled and then the conversation seemed to stop. It wasn't the awkward kind of silence. It was more like the kind of silence where nothing needs to be said, where words didn't need to describe what they were feeling. The peacefulness floated in the air between them, each of them seemingly discontent with the situation, each wanting touch.

Then, Edward leaned over so close, that Bella could feel his breath on her face. He kissed this little spot on his nose, so gently and so affectionately.

"You had some ice cream on your nose," Edward whispered. Bella kissed him on the forehead.

"You didn't have anything on your forehead but it just looked very kissable," Bella whispered, trying for the same intensity as Edward.

Unfortunately, it failed epically and both of them burst into fits of laughter.

"Shouldn't we go and look for the rest of the people?" Bella asked. Edward pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and tried to turn it on.

"NO BATTERY?! Oh, crap! I forgot to charge it yesterday," Edward said, grumbling. Bella had the feeling that Edward had forgotten to charge his stupid phone on purpose, leaving them stranded in Wonder Park (which, by the way, was a pretty MASSIVE theme park) together.

"Aren't you sneaky," Bella snickered.

The rest of the day was spent riding various roller coasters, and playing those lame, parasitic games that were only trying to leech all your money by getting you addicted. Edward never, ever yelled on any of the roller coasters. Instead, he looked pretty woozy when he got off. Poor guy. Who ever would have expected someone like him to be unable to tolerate roller coasters?

But he pwnd at all the games and unfortunately for the people running the games, he happened to leech all their prizes and they were unable to leech any of his money.

At the end, Edward had won an enormous panda and an enormous monkey, along with various little beanie babie things. Bella had only won a really ugly ostrich thing. Edward asked Bella for a trade , but Bella rejected.

"As if! I worked hard for this ugly flamingo! It has a lot of sentimental value!" Bella said. Edward smirked. Bella liked the way he was unlike any other cheesy guys and did not heap all his prizes on her. In those movies where the guy just ALWAAYS gives the girl the giant stuffed animal, Bella wanted to scream, "HELLO! Is she worthless or what?! She can win her own stupid stuffed animal! This is SO cliché!"

"I'll give you the panda if you hold my hand and make sure I don't get lost," Edward said. Bella snorted.

"You can go ahead and get lost! I have nowhere to put a life-size panda!" Bella said.

"Well, then you can have the smiling tree with eyes. I won it from that environmental booth where you had to shoot all the wildfires and construction workers!" Edward said.

"The tree looks demented."

"What?! I thought it sort of looked like your hair this morning," Edward said, laughing. Bella glared at him and snatched the stupid tree.

Despite Bella's tough talk, they held hands the rest of the day.

They went to the entrance when the sun was setting. The rest of the group hadn't arrived yet. Edward and Bella sat near this pond at the entrance. Bella was super-tired and leaned on Edward's shoulder. Then, Edward leaned down and kissed Bella, who was not expecting it at all. She was so shocked, she could have just fallen into the pond right then and there. But Edward had a firm hold on her and his kiss was so sweet and full, Bella found her hand trailing up his back as she kissed him back.

They were not interrupted until the rest of the group came up and Hailey shrieked like a madwoman. Edward and Bella broke away and Bella turned to Hailey.

"WHAAAT THE FUCK?! Bella, you're such a SKANK! How can you seduce someone as innocent as EDWARD?! You are SO SICK!" Hailey shrieked.

Bella could practically hear the rumor mill running, twisting the entire situation. She smacked her forehead. Edward walked up to Hailey and stared at her in the eyes.

"You... DARE call Bella a skank again and you can consider yourself dead," Edward said coldly, enunciating each word cruelly. Bella watched as each syllable seemed to puncture Hailey in the heart. Her eyes brimmed up with tears.

"Wait, Edward... you don't have to be so harsh. I mean, I am a skank! Woo, look at me! So skanky! I was seducing you!" Bella babbled, feeling sort of feverish and dizzy. Oh, god. The drama! She really did NOT need this.

Hailey glared at Bella, her eyes burning. She stomped over and pushed Bella into the pond. Bella flailed insanely. SHE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO SWIM! Her clothes were weighing down on her and the green water seemed to eating her, swallowing her whole. Everything became black.

Bella's eyes fluttered open to see Edward pressing down on her tummy and seeming to suck her soul out with all his weirdly passionate and frantic CPR. She felt his North Face thrown over her. It hurt to move. It sort of hurt to talk.

She managed to choke out, "I-I was just sick two weekkkks agko! God-d-d-damnit, Hailey! You b-b-bitch! D-do you know how badly I need a g-gooddkk En-gklish grade ..."

Her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

She woke up again in a comfy bed. Dim sunlight filtered into the room. A light breeze floated on in through the open window. She had a headache. She rubbed her eyes. Where was she?

She looked around and climbed out of bed. Her clothes were still a little damp. Her hair was certainly a chaotic mess.

She walked around. A picture of Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie was on the bedside table, along with a picture of _NeonEternity_. The room was immaculate. Bella only saw such neat rooms in houses that were not inhabited. There was coffee on the table, along with some papers. Bella sat down and stared at the papers.

She noticed a letter from Dr. Carlisle Cullen and pulled it out from the stack of papers on top of it.

_Dearest Edward,_

_Your cancer has developed rapidly since our last check-up. I don't understand why you don't want any treatment. Please, come to my office and we can talk about this. _

_With love,_

_Carlisle_

Bella nearly fell out of the chair. She stared at the paper, her hands shaking. She checked the date. It had only been written a week ago. Edward had cancer.

Why didn't he want any treatment?

Was he okay with knowing that he'd die?

Was that why he had passed out?

How could he just run around like a normal kid?

Was that why he was skipping so much school?

HOW DID HE FEEL?

Was this the secret he was keeping from her?

How long did he have left to live?

WHY WOULDN'T HE GET TREATMENT?

What was going on?

What's happening?

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

What the fuck?

WHAT THE FUCK?!

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hehehe what the fuck.

well anyway, the enttiiiire amusement park thing was completely a filler, but hey, at least they're sort of an official couple now since they kissed and Bella got pushed into a pond and all that great stuff.

R&R, kids (;


	8. Chapter 8

blahhh. this chapter was pretty much SHIT. but whatever. I'm not gonna upload for another century or so. sorrreh.

disclaimer! as usual. do i have to disclaimer EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER? what a drag.

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Chapter 8

"So you know my secret now," a voice said from behind her. Bella turned around. Edward was standing behind the chair, looking serene, save for the sadness in his eyes. He kissed Bella on the cheek, and suddenly, Bella couldn't stand it anymore. She broke down crying. She clutched Edward's shirt and sobbed into it, her tears staining it. She inhaled his smell, so clean and so familiar and so nice.

"I-I've only known you, like, a month, you know," Bella choked out miserably, "It's not r-r-really fair that you I-I-I'm so in l-l-lo-... shit, I can't even s-say it."

Edward's eyes were so full of sorrow that it just made it even more painful. Bella felt like her her heart was tearing into pieces, like it was being put through a paper-shredder, like it was being run over by a lawnmower.

Everything became blurry and painful.

Piano music in the background.

Mirror near the bed.

Spilled coffee.

Photos of smiling people.

A chess set.

CHECKMATE.

Bella punched Edward hard in the stomach.

"Why didn't you tell me? Don't give me that shit about being afraid to hurt me, about _protecting _me. It's not like I love you. I don't care. You can just go off and die without even _trying _to keep on living. What are you to me anyway?" Bella cried, tears rolling down her face. She felt like no matter how much she'd cried, she could never run out, she would never be dry, never be calm enough to stop.

She stumbled up and blundered out of the door. Outside, she called a taxi and could barely utter out her dorm building. He kept sneaking nervous glances at her, who never stopped crying the entire way.

When Bella finally arrived, she tossed the driver a 50 and ran to her dorm room. She ignored the startled face of Alice (who opened the door), and immediately dived onto her bed, wishing that her tears would just drown her.

"So... you found out?" Alice asked. Bella couldn't utter a word, because of all her tearful hysterics, and only nodded painfully.

"He... he wanted to tell you. He just didn't want to hurt you. It was a it selfish, I suppose... He didn't want you to leave him. He wanted to stay by your side. He NEEDED you to stay by HIS side," Alice said quietly, although it was at least loud enough for Bella to hear over her own wretched sobs. She never thought she'd be the type of person to cry over a guy. BUT WHO WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THAT SHE'D FALL IN LOVE WITH A GUY WHO HAD CANCER?

"He-he's not as strong as people think he is. He's all calmness and righteousness. But really, even he is soft and weak when it comes to love. He couldn't let you leave him. He loved about you and cared about you and he just didn't want to hurt you or see you leave him..." Alice said.

"Wh-why won't he get treatment?!" Bella asked. While everything hurt, this was confusing. Did Edward just want to die?

"I'll get treatment," Edward said, climbing in through the window, "I'll get chemo. Bella, if you want me to, I'll get chemo," Edward said, panting. His hair was blown all over the place and his t-shirt was still stained with tears.

"Did you run all the way here?" Bella asked. Edward nodded solemnly.

"I didn't want to get chemo. To me, all that desperately getting transfusions and chemotherapy and whatever surgery just to try uselessly to prevent me from dying. I don't want that kind of fuss. I'd like to just die naturally," Edward said, "But for you, I would like to live just a little bit longer."

"A little big longer isn't enough, Edward. I need forever, I need fucking FOREVER WITH YOU" Bella's initial whisper became a shout. Tears couldn't come. Alice had decided it would be favorable for her to get out of the dorm, so she left quietly. Bella felt a pang of guilt for always bringing drama into the dorm and burdening Alice.

Edward jumped down from the window and hugged Bella tightly. She cried into his shoulder and not a word was said.

"We'll have forever. My _body _doesn't need to be here for our love to remain. We can be together forever," Edward said.

"Oh, you cheesy cheeseball," Bella mumbled.

That night, Bella fell asleep in Edward's arms, as he gently cradled her head and hummed.

Bella opened her eyes. Edward was asleep and her head was on his stomach. His finger was entwined in his hair. Bella smiled cynically as she looked at the stuffed tree with a face. Yesterday suddenly felt like it was a long time ago, such a long time ago. Bella vaguely remembered bikes and ice cream and CPR and sunlight and Mozart and checkmate.

Edward opened his eyes, awake, and kissed Bella. Bella was quite aware of the chaotic condition of her hair but suddenly, how ridiculous her hair looked was a petty matter compared to Edward, her Edward, that strange, funny, kind, sometimes childish, intelligent Edward. It was unfair, so very unfair, that someone so talented, so loved, so beautiful, so wise, so considerate, so with the right to live should have been struck with such a fate.

Bella leaned against Edward.

"Want to go on an adventure?" Bella asked, pulling Edward out of bed.

"Don't you have homework?" Edward asked, smiling.

"Shut the hell up and wait for me," Bella said as she went and took a shower, and then proceeded to change out of the clothes she had been wearing since yesterday, which smelled sort of weird after Bella had been shoved into a fucking pond by a crazy, jealous bitch.

When she came out, Edward had made breakfast just like the previous day. Bella ate it. Edward didn't touch his food and was instead staring at his fingers.

"Come on, we're going on an adventure," Bella said, carrying her acoustic guitar and pulling Edward along. They took the bus. They were on the bus for four hours.

Edward kept saying that he could have gotten a taxi and that the bus was filthy. He was especially angry when he noticed a group of morons staring at Bella, specifically her breasts. One of them even dared to whistle.

Finally, they stopped in the middle of nowhere and Bella got off. Edward followed wordlessly. There were a bunch of buildings that looked like they were going to all fall on top of each other. It was dirty and stinky. The buildings had graffiti all over them, and some shabby laundry were hung out of the apartment buildings. A bunch of homeless people were there idly. This seemed to be the face of poverty, dirty children playing around, mothers carrying their skinny babies in their arms, rugged men idling around on the street, not caring enough to beg because they knew that nobody around there would have any spare change anyway.

Bella tapped her foot on the ground and said, "HEY, GUYS! I'm back!" Edward whirled around and wondered what the fuck "I'm back" was supposed to mean. Several of the women turned and smiled. A lot of the old men laughed and talked amongst each other, saying things like "Hey, it's Bella!" All the kids ran over and tugged on Bella's jeans.

"Bella, Bella!" they said, pleading her to play with them.

"This is my home," Bella said to Edward. Edward stared at this little town, what looked like leftovers from a fancy dinner. It looked like it had been shoved onto the edge of the world, everyone dirty and scrawny and ugly and yet so happy, so merry.

She tapped her guitar case against the gravel ground and took out her guitar.

A spunky teenager, who was dressed in this grunge-punk look, walked over.

"Bella!" she cried and gave Bella an enormous hug. Edward could see that her eye-liner was smearing with tears.

"Geez, it's been a month since you ditched us for that preppy academy. Oooh, and you brought back a present? What's his name?" the girl asked, pointing in Edward's direction.

"Edward, meet Izzy. Izzy, meet Edward," Bella said.

"EDWARD? YOU MEAN EDDIE! This is the kid from NEONETERNITY! How'd you get such a catch?!" Izzy screeched. Edward smiled awkwardly.

"But he's dressed up all preppy. What happened to all that emo punk kind of look?" Izzy asked suspiciously. Nobody said anything as Izzy looked Edward up and down.

"Well, anyway, c'mere, girl, gimme ole Genie," Izzy said, holding out her hand. Her fingers were painted with chipped black nail polish. Edward didn't know who Genie was until Bella handed Izzy her guitar.

"Lezzee noww..."

_My best friend _

_My best friend_

_My best friend Bella_

_My ugly girlfriend_

_My funny lover_

_My best friend_

_My best friend_

_Look she's brought a fella_

_An ugly boyfriend_

_A crazy lover_

Izzy improvised some lyrics as she played some random chords. She was really skinny and really tall. Her hair was huge, piled all on top of her head and stuffed under a fedora. She looked sort of like a drama queen, wearing a tight shirt under a battered, black, leather jacket. She was wearing a belt around her neck. To top it off, she wore a huge dress that went down the ground. She was gorgeous, with thick eye-liner and ruby red lipstick. There was pink blush on her pale skin. Edward stared at her. Despite the arbitrary lyrics and tune, she looked very intense.

When she was done, Bella kissed her cheek and caused Izzy to laugh. Edward stared at the gravel floor Bella inched closer to Edward and put her arm against his back.

"Oh man. I still remember your favorite song, Izzy!" Bella said.

She took Genie from Izzy and started playing, her smile seeming to light up the entire little shamble of buildings.

_1, 2, 3, 4  
No, I want more  
5, 6, 7  
It's not OK  
How come you taste so good?  
This time I'm really hooked_

_It's half past ten, it's getting late  
But the night is young and I can't wait  
You know I like it loud  
You should know me by now_

_Something sweet or something strong  
Seems like love no longer can turn me on  
Like boy need girl and girl need boy  
Got a nasty habit called rock'n'roll_

_But you don't know what it's like  
I've done things you've only dreamed about  
More than once or twice  
Tt keeps me up at night  
Jump up, bubble up, what's in store?  
Bryan looked for love, but I want more  
I found another beat, there's no time for sleep_

_Something sweet and something strong  
Seems like love no longer can turn me on  
Like the girls in suits and those pretty boys  
I gave my heart to rock'n'roll  
To rock'n'roll  
Rock'n'roll  
Oh, oh.._

_So you can call the police  
I'm sorry 'bout my manners, but you see,  
I'm a bit drunk as you can see  
I bet you would like to undress me_

_Something sweet and something strong  
Seems like love no longer can turn me on  
Like boy need girl and girl need boy  
Got a nasty habit called rock'n'roll  
_

Izzy was sobbing uncontrollably. So this was Bella's home, where Bella had come from. This queer place of eccentric people and fading dreams and lost horizons. Of crime and poverty. Of filth and pieces.

Edward held Bella's hand tight, refusing to let go. Suddenly, Edward felt a little farther away from her, as if she had come from a different world. But somehow, it just made him feel like Bella was too good for him. He needed the physical contact to make him feel close enough to her, to be worthy of her.

As they were on the bus back to the Academy, Edward said, "I thought... you were from California."

"Oh yeah, of course! But my mom died and all this BS happened and I got into the Academy on scholarship so Charlie, my dad, and I moved over there. So yeah, yeah, yeah," Bella said. Edward leaned over and kissed her fully on the lips. Bella kissed him back, letting her hand trail under his shirt and feel his smooth, bare back.

But, of course, it was a public bus! And the old ladies started tisking and clucking and all that, and the children were all laughing and shrieking at their moms. So they had to stop.

"Now that I've seen your hometown, I feel like on a completely different league than me," Edward said stoically.

"Different league as in lower league?" Bella asked.

"Bella, not everything can be judged by money and class," Edward said quietly, "I can't respect you because you've led a much harder life than I have?"

"I would hardly call it hard. You get used to it," Bella said nonchalantly.

After that, no words were said and Edward fell asleep on Bella's shoulder.

"You want to hear a secret?" Bella whispered to Edward's sleeping figure.

"I love you" Bella whispered. Edward smiled in his sleep, probably smiling because of something in his dreams, something completely irrelevant to what Bella had just said.

Or perhaps he had dreamed of Bella saying that to him at the exact same moment she said it to him in reality, on that cramped, dirty, crappily air-conditioned bus, rambling on its way to the Academy, Bella's new home with Edward.

* * *

yikess. pretty crappy.

AH WELL. READ AND REVIEW, KIDS. i will get angry if you don't review!


	9. Chapter 9

oh god, i have absolutely no life these days. no life no life. All I am doing is sitting on my poor ass and updating my fanfiction, which nobody reads anyway.

SO Y'ALL BETTER APPRECIATE IT AND R&R (; haha thank you to Devil'sMaster for a very nice R&R, by the way. keep it upp.

OH! and DISCLAIMER! and i forgot to mention in the previous chapter, the song that Bella played for Iggy is not mine. it is rock and roll by the sounds (: very nice. listen to it.

* * *

THURSDAY

Of course, upon returning to school, Hailey, and possibly Rosalie to boot, had immediately started the engine on the rumor mill and everyone was buzzing around about slutty Bella and poor, innocent Edward who fell for her sick gimmicks. About everyone was giving Bella disgusted looks. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you looked at it, some completely idiotic kids had decided that they did not care _how _much of a whore Bella was. They apparently worshiped her for being "unique," which was all just saying that she had kissed Edward. Thus, they went around giving her these dreamy looks and suddenly being extremely friendly to her and, Bella discovered with complete shock and aggravation, one of them had even started a _fan club_. Some kind of groupie handing out pins and giving petitions (petitions, I say!) encouraging people to support Bella and Edward getting married. The outrage of it made Bella want to barf. Not to mention, the fan club name was COMPLETELY ridiculous. Who had the sense to name a pairing BELLWARD?! [what would have happened if Edward was still Eddie... it'd be BELLY]

"I am not liking all this attention, Edward. Can you beat up that Sally Majors? She is seriously getting on my nerves with her pins and petitions and screeching and offering me muffins," Bella said to Edward at the lunch table.

"But her muffins are home-made! They're so moist and chocolate-y and all that good stuff!" Edward said. Bella rolled her eyes.

"Right," Bella said.

"I think it's funny that you are more irritated by someone who _likes _you rather than all those people who are pissed at you," Edward said. Bella shrugged.

"You're going to leave after 5th period to go see Carlisle and get chemotherapy, right? Also, I hope you're quitting track team and you rest a lot, and absolutely STOP climbing in through the window," Bella said. She scribbled lazily onto her planner: _Visit Edward... immediately after school_. The colorful blue Magic Marker that she had used seemed too bright to be used for something so painful.

"The way you're saying all that as if it's regular business, with that nonchalant, busybody air, is seriously bugging me," Edward said. Bella's eyes seemed to tear up for a little while, but then she chuckled and ruffled Edward's hair. Unfortunately, this only reminded her that soon, Edward would have _no _hair soon, after all the chemo for his leukemia.

"Will this make up for it then?" Bella asked as she leaned over and kissed Edward. Edward smiled and put his hand in his hair.

But unfortunately, this was an extremely unintelligent thing to do, as various girls immediately aimed their death glares in that general direction and meanwhile, Sally Majors screeched with excitement and probably would have permitted herself to faint dramatically if she hadn't had to pull out her cell phone and start taking rapid snapshots of the two.

Bella immediately broke away. She was on the verge of marching over to Sally Majors and taking her head off, but Edward smiled and restrained Bella.

"Are you going to miss me for the week that I'll be at the hospital?" Edward asked. Bella seemed to stab at her chicken with a little bit more than the required force.

"I'd rather miss you for a week than miss you for the rest of my life, Edward," Bella whispered, chomping down on her lip and causing it to bleed. Ignoring Sally Majors and her evil cell phone, Edward kissed away the blood.

After school, Bella brought Edward a Coke. He was sleeping on the bed, some weird medical stuff stuck on him, which made Bella want to punch a wall. She didn't want to wake Edward up, though, so she just bit down on her lip, remembering the feeling of Edward's soft, cool lips against the little scar. She sat outside on the bench a little while first, letting her fingers trace over her own face, recounting all the places Edward had touched or kissed. Each part of her that Edward had touched seemed like a temple, carrying memories of Edward forever, even after Bela and Edward would die _together _at the ripe old age of AT LEAST 439571345 years old. Was that a little too far-fetched? Oh, well.

Thinking about Edward, smirking Edward, gentle Edward, strong Edward, lovely Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward... In a fit of fury, Bella pulled out her calendar and on that date, she scribbled all over it in black Sharpie. Then, feeling sick, she ripped up her calendar. It wasn't like Bella ever really used it anyway. She still forgot things right and left. And she didn't need a calendar to remember anything that had to do with Edward. Edward, Edward, Edward... more pain, more anger, more sadness, more screaming-inside-your-head, more wishing-to-blast-music-until-your-brain-bleeds-out-the-hurt.

Since this was Carlisle's hospital, Bella didn't have to worry about visiting hours and all that BS. She stood in front of the door. The hallway was brightly lit, but for some reason, Bella felt like no matter how bright, the hospital would always be too dark.

She pushed the door open with shaking hands and nearly dropped the Coke and her backpack on her toe. Instead, everything stayed in her hands and she used her hand to cover her mouth. Otherwise, surely, surely, she would have screamed.

Because, there, in front of Bella's eyes, Victoria and Edward were kissing...

* * *

what an extremely short chapter.

but i just HAD to stop at a cliffhanger.

R AND R.

kthxbye.


	10. Chapter 10

Bella tried to back out silently but, being the FUCKING klutz that she was, her elbow knocked into a vase of flowers. It went crashing to the floor. Victoria and Edward broke away. Edward stared at her blankly, aloofly, as if she was a complete stranger and Edward had no idea what she was doing there. DEJA VU. Was this another, "I don't think we should be friends. It'd be best if we stay away from each other, so I decided to have a pleasant make-out session with Victoria over here." Because honestly, Bella was _beyond _sick of all this drama and having her feelings pushed around.

Meanwhile, Victoria was smirking, her lips curled up wickedly. She looked like a cat, having just pounced on a ball of yarn or having just caught a mouse. And Bella was the mouse. Checkmate. Checkmate. Her life was all just Checkmates, Checkmates. Why didn't she ever win? Why was her heart always the target of all these shotgun bullets. At this point, the impact had shattered it. This was probably a good thing, since Bella didn't know how she would manage another shot at her heart. Now that her heart had splintered, she couldn't be shot at anymore.

Bella straightened up and gazed at Edward steadily, wordlessly. She wanted an explanation, an explanation, anything.... just glue her heart back together already. He didn't return her stare and didn't once look into her eyes. He had no explanation, no glue.

Bella didn't shed a single tear. She turned around and walked away, the heels of her broken Converses hitting the floor silently and the backs of her tattered jeans trailing against the floor. She wasn't a princess. She wasn't a celebrity. She wasn't a Victoria or a Rosalie or an Alice. She was just herself, plain and boring and poor and broken.

Why in the world did Bella think that she ever had a chance with Edward? She was probably just some sort of sick entertainment. He had his fun with her, played with her, and now he was bored. He didn't want her anymore, and he was perfectly fine with throwing her away. Bella was tired of the Academy, where she couldn't help but feel so alone. Edward had made her feel a little bit more pretty, a little bit more special for a while. But she was just being stupid. How stupid.

And do you know what the sickest thing was? Even after this betrayal falling out of nowhere, Bella still cared. She still didn't want Edward to die. She still hated him for having leukemia.

Bella had considered staying home and skipping work. In the end, she had decided to go to work. Sitting at home with nothing to keep her busy, the time seemed to stretch for miles and she knew that she'd be forced to think about everything that was wrong, everything that was wrong with Edward and her. She'd be spending the entire time pitying herself and regretting the Academy.

Bella arrived at the café twenty minutes early, to the complete surprise of Mrs. Prince.

"Oh! Thank goodness, Bella! You must be psychic! The worker from the earlier shift had to leave early because of a sick stomach or something, and it's been an incredibly busy day!" Mrs. Prince said, bustling here and there.

"Get dressed, and in the back, there's a bag of peppermints. Restock the peppermint jar that's next to the cash register. Then, I'm going to need you to man the counter," Mrs. Prince said as she ran by with some milkshakes for table 9.

Bella went to the back to get dressed. She restocked the peppermint jar, emptied the donations box, and started to scrub the counter. She was just about done cleaning the sink when Jacob sauntered in, on time as usual. He was whistling merrily and swinging around his earphones.

"OHH. EMMM. EFF. GEE. Bella is actu-wully awn time today!" Jacob said, sassily cocking his hip to the left and doing some sort of shimmy thing. Bella laughed. It sounded so natural; Bella hadn't even thought she could laugh after what she'd just seen. She should have known that Jacob could make her feel a little bit more normal.

"Could you man the counter? I'm going to wash the windows!" Bella said. Jacob nodded.

Bella got SUPERSHINE solution, a sponge, and a pail of water. The windows were large, going from the ceiling pretty much to the floor. Bella immediately started working.

She was halfway done, when Edward and Victoria walked in. Together. Holding hands. All lovey-dovey, mooshy-gooshy. Bella felt all the breath leave her lungs. She couldn't breathe. She leaned on the windowpane, watching the soapy water drip down like rain, like loneliness and sorrow and regret.

Bella didn't even wince. She was so tired of being afraid. She wasn't going to just start to tear up and choke on her own saliva every time she saw Edward and Victoria together. She had to be STRONG! SHE HAD TO BE SUPERMAN! She wasn't going to be a mopey little wrist-slitter and rain on everyone's party, much less her OWN party.

After finishing scrubbing the window, she went behind the counter. Jake and Bella started a completely arbitrary conversation about Disney, in which Jake pointed out that his favorite Disney movie was Bambi and that he cried whenever he sees the part when Bambi's mom dies (oh, that hopeless romantic! Who would have known?). Bella, meanwhile, indicated that she had a guilty pleasure for the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, even though she HATED HATED HATED the character of Piglet.

"PIGLET! Is he supposed to be MALE?! Oh my goodness! What a wimp. And how in the world do you understand what he's saying w-w-w-w-with-th-th-th th-th-th-th-th-the w-w-w-w-w-w-way h-h-h-h-h-h-h-he t-t-t-t-t-talks!" Bella screeched, noticing too late that her voice was WAY above an indoor voice. She silently cursed herself for being such a loud, noisy, obnoxious person who liked to attract strange looks, such as the one Victoria was giving her.

Now, other than the fact that Victoria had just snatched Edward away behind Bella's back, Bella had really nothing against her. That is, until, Edward leaned over and said, "Your little friend seems to have a high capacity for screaming," in a nastily bitchy way. Bella just stood there for a second, gaping, and then proceeded to smack her head against the counter top repetitively. She must have been born under a very, very unfortunate star. Why couldn't she just live a SINGLE day without being noticed? All she wanted was to stay under the radar. Clearly, this was hard to do when she was always screaming about Piglet.

Jacob stared at her.

"Why in the world are you smacking your head against the counter top?"

"I'm seeing how many times it takes to smack my head to lose enough brain cells to die... or at least get my memory permanently impaired," Bella declared.

"Yeah, so I was wondering, what the hell happened with you and Edward?" Jacob asked. Bella stared through her hair, which was hanging around all over her face. She blew it away and glared at Jacob.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh please, Bella, you can't possibly think I'm _that _stupid. I go to the Academy too, you know. Everyone knew something was going on with you and Edward from the instant you stepped into the Academy. So what's up with Edward and Victoria sharing a milkshake over there while you're over here, bonking yourself to brain damage?"

"There was _never _anything between Edward and I. And what Edward does with Victoria is none of my business," Bella said through gritted teeth. Jake raised his eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Whatever you say."

Bella started doing some Calculus homework with the help of Jacob. She could not help but occasionally let her eyes stray over to Edward and Victoria's table. They never seemed to want to leave. They finished their milkshake, then ordered some donuts. Now, they were sitting there and whispering surreptitiously, their faces inches away from each other. At first, Edward seemed bored, overall unamused. His legs were hoisted up onto the table and he was playing with his straw. Now, he was leaning in and Victoria was smiling surreptitiously, as if she had some kind of scandalous secret.

Sometimes, Victoria's laugh, a dainty hoo-hoo, would float from the table. Each time it sounded like they were having a good time, Bella wanted to bring the blender over to their table and stuff it over both their heads, and press the POWER button. Bella loved being ruthless.... sike.

Bella was going along fuming inside her head and letting her hand move closer and closer to the bender, when the bell dinged, signaling that someone was coming in. Who could it be but Sally Majors and her crew of muffin-baking, petition-making, overly friendly-cheesy crew of BELLWARD supporters. With a startled yelp, Bella immediately ducked down behind the counter, hiding herself from view. Jacob looked down with an amused expression. Unfortunately, he had to go run on an errand, leaving Bella stranded here with Sally Majors.

First, she crawled over to the door to the back room like an idiot. She realized with despair that the door was locked, which meant Mrs. Prince was baking and did not want to be interrupted.

She knew that Sally Majors had seen her an instant ago and would wonder what was going on, so Bella stuck her face in a sack of flour. Desperately, she tied her hair into scraggly pigtails. She pulled a lipstick out of her skirt, which she knew Alice had planted there sneakily that morning. With shaking hands, Bella scribbled over her lips with it, ignoring it when she smeared it all over the place. Knowing for sure that she would be unrecognizable now, Bella pounced back up and smiled. Jacob stared at her like she was insane. Bella gave him a simpering chuckle, heheheee...

"Hey, babe. Like, what can I get for you today?" Bella asked, in a preppy voice. Sally raised her eyebrows and looked slightly disgusted. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Victoria and Edward had stopped looking into each other's eyes and whispering lovingly. Now, they were both looking at Bella, covered in flour and smeared lipstick.

"Oh. my. God! Bella?! Is that _you_?" Sally asked, all bubbly-sounding and excited. Bella wanted to melt into a messy puddle of flour and lipstick right there.

"Ehmagawd! _Bella_? Whoo-oo in the wuh-orld is _Bell-ah_? My name's... PIGLET..." Bella blurted. She couldn't believe she had just said her name was Piglet. Obviously, she _had _lost a dangerous number of brain cells because she had definitely LOST HER MIND. She could see Edward and Victoria smirking at her.

"Piget? Like the Winnie the Pooh character?" Sally asked.

"Yeaa-aaah. Like, my parents were TOTALLY into Winnie the Poo-ooh when they were preggie! So I got named Piglet. My boyfriend thinks it's tuh-otally cuh-yooot!" Bella said, feeling like a girl from one of those weird Clique books about these prep-slut 7th grade girls living Beverly Hills or something.

"Oh.... I see. Could I have a Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino, caffeine-free, with a low-fat Chocolate donut?" Sally said.

"Coming ri-ight up, honey!" Bella said. She immediately went to start making everything for Sally, when Sally shrieked, causing Bella to drop the pitcher of milk she was holding. Milk spilled all over the floor. Bella wanted to shoot someone. She was getting EXTREMELY pissed off.

"Edward! What are you doing with Victoria?! I thought you were with Bella!" Sally screeched, shocked. Edward didn't respond. Sally backed away slowly, with wide eyes.

She walked over to the table she was sitting at with her fan club, and they exchanged confused looks. She pulled out her cell phone and immediately began dialing numbers.

"Hello? Suzie? Cancel all the prints of BELLWARD posters and petitions. I think that Bellward is officially OVER. Right now, I'm at Prince and Edward and Victoria are sitting in a booth together, drinking milkshakes and kissing and stuff... NO! He can't be cheating! Otherwise, he wouldn't be kissing Victoria so publicly! They obviously broke up!" Sally was loud-whispering into her cell phone. Bella could hear every word.

"Order 196!" Bella called. This happened to be Sally's frap and donut, but she was obviously too shocked to be paying attention to order calls. After ten minutes of calling out ORDER 196, Bella decided to go over there and personally serve the damn stuff to Sally.

"I can't believe it. They only lasted, like, a week!" Sally was whispering.

"It probably lasted longer than that since everyone saw them together, and everyone could tell they liked each other. It's just pretty obvious Bella and Edward both don't like attention, so their relationship wasn't apparent to the public eye until Hailey blabbed it to the entire world," some other fan club member said.

"Psht. Well, I always wondered what the hell Edward was doing with someone like _Bella_. I mean, she's _pretty_ and smart and stuff, I guess. But she's _so, _like, plain. And she's so weird. She, like, bikes everywhere instead of driving. She wears, like, thrift store clothes, I swear to God! I think she shops at Target for her clothes! She doesn't dress feminine at all! She's always just wearing jeans and t-shirts and sneakers and stuff. Like, could you look any _more _like a dike? She listens to all this weird music. Like, what the hell is _Imogen Heap_? And she's not even _hot_!" Sally said.

Bella was standing there stupidly, holding Sally's stupid drink and her donut. She wasn't even mad. Everything Sally was all too true. Obviously, Sally and her fan club had not yet noticed Bella standing there, because someone else started to say something.

"Well, I mean, a LOT of guys liked her when she came here. The guy I like was saying that guys like the way she's so down-to-earth and, like, she didn't care so much about how she looks and what she eats and stuff. He said it's easier to be with a girl like Bella," a girl with an extremely high-pitched, squeaky voice piped up.

"Oh, puh-lease! It's okay for someone like Justin to like Bella. But Edward should have higher standards! I think that Edward and Victoria make a WAY better couple than Bella and Edward," someone else said.

Bella couldn't stand hearing all this anymore.

"Ahem, order 196" Bella said, setting down the drink and the donut. All eyes turned to look at Bella. She smiled a weak little smile and walked away.

In ten minutes, her shift was over. Bella breathed an enormous sigh of relief. But what about the rest of her life? She wasn't sure she could spend the rest f her life, hearing other people talk about her and Edward.


End file.
